


Meridian

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Sticky Sex, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-26 02:44:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 33
Words: 44,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>An AU taking canon from the notion of...what if Deadlock had been setting them up all along, and betrays Crystal City to the Decepticons? This is my id-fic. So...dark and angsty.</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An AU taking canon from the notion of...what if Deadlock had been setting them up all along, and betrays Crystal City to the Decepticons? This is my id-fic. So...dark and angsty.

_  
**Meridian Prologue and Chapter One**   
_   


R  
IDW AU  
Wing, Deadlock, Lockdown  
violence For series: sticky, noncon, dubcon, mindfucking, angst  
The whole premise of this AU: that Deadlock really had betrayed the Circle and set up the final battle to sell them out to the Slavers and go back to the Decepticons. 

The battle was over, the cyberdrenaline beginning to ebb, too quickly, from Deadlock’s systems. He’d needed the battle, like some sort of drug, needed the violence, the hard rush of life crashing into death. The swords had only been…more addictive, more personal, a refinement he decided he liked, as he stroked one thumb down a blade, through the gummy lines of energon and alien fluid. Close, intimate. Personal.

He wiped the blade across the bevel on his forearm before sliding it into the scabbard. “Secure him,” he said, feeling the note of command, hard as steel, rasp in his voice, matching the slide of the sword. It felt…good. In control, again. Finally.

Lockdown frowned, nasal plating crinkling in something like distaste. Deadlock flicked an optic at him. Complain all he might, he was hired to do a job:to retrieve Deadlock.Deadlock had considerable leeway, then, to set terms. Even Lockdown knew that if it came down toe-to-toe, Deadlock could win, fight his way from the hunter’s pursuit.

But why not play along?It was what Deadlock had wanted all along, after all—to get back to the war, back to fighting.If he could get that—and a little bonus for his time and trouble—why not?

It was, after all, the Decepticon way.

Deadlock couldn’t keep the swagger from his walk, crossing the littered battlefield. The slave traders were gathering the rest of the Knights, bodily tossing some of them onto a gravsled.But Wing…Wing knelt, an inhibitor clamp around his frame, pinning his wings to his body.He was battered from the battle, dented, stained with energon, and would have died, had Deadlock not jerked the blaster off a dead slaver, shooting Braid in the arm to deflect a fatal blow.

“You,” Deadlock said, the smirk coloring his voice, “owe me your life.” Irony, sweet and sharp.

“Drift,” Wing said, gold optics still glazed, uncomprehending.The arrogant jet—he’d been so certain of everything: his rightness, his superiority.He had earned this comedown.

And it would get worse, if Deadlock had any say in it.“Deadlock,” he answered.

The sensuous mouth twitched.“So…it’s been a lie.”

Deadlock felt his own mouth curl into a smirk. “Everything.”

“I…can’t believe that.”

A glitter of the blue optics Deadlock couldn’t wait to change. “You will.”

[***]

Wing’s foot scraped loudly in the small room.His optics cycled low in the darkness, the gold a dim amber glow. A row of energon cubes lay nearby, full. Why fuel? There was no purpose, no point.He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be alive. He’d been wrong—tragically, monumentally wrong. And others had died, while he…had lived.

Five days he’d been here, the vibration of a ship’s drive under him, something he only distantly remembered from their long-ago, headlong flight from a burning Cybertron. A ship, again. Hurling him towards a once-again unknown future. He hadn’t realized howmuch he’d counted on stability, familiarity, until it was torn from him.The City.

And Drift.Or…whoever Drift was.

The images flashed bright in the darkness, no matter how tightly Wing shuttered his optics: Cloudburst falling, his deep battlecry cut abruptly short; sharp screams of pain; clashes of metal on metal; the dull buzz-burst of blaster discharge, bolts of energy, pellets of pure color and light.Too much action, too much stimuli colliding all at once, shattering the beautiful image of the peace of Crystal City into bright, noisy shards.

Wing could have wept, were he not numb, as though tears were solace he did not deserve.

A footfall, outside and then the whine of the old cell door rolling aside. Wing didn’t even look up: what was the point? Why gift whoever it was with his curiosity?

“Wing.” A wry amusement in the voice. Deadlock.

“Yes.”Giving nothing more: Wing had so very little to give. Even the word seemed an effort.

A movement, Deadlock dropping into a low squat.His face was curved into that hard smirk that set something trembling with unease near Wing’s spark. “At least you’re alive,” he said, voice thick with some rich amusement….

…that curdled in Wing’s audio. “I’d rather be with the others.”

A twitch of one optic shutter, the smile ruffling before resettling.“How much attention did you pay for what I’d rather do?”

“I was trying to help you! I rescued you!”

“I didn’t need rescue.” The mouth twitched, denying reality. The slavers would have killed him that first night.He knew it, Wing thought. He had to.But he was deliberately shoving that aside, clinging to some hard resentment.

“Drift--.”

Deadlock shook his head, optics flicking in semi-amused tolerance. “Not quick to catch on,” he said, mildly. “That’s your problem.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re Drift. Deny it all you want.” A flash of the gold optics.

Deadlock shook his head. “I’ll win this one, Wing.”

Wing folded his hands on his upraised thighs. “What do you want with me?”

A dark laugh, and a hand brushing the framing of his shin. “You.”

“Some petty revenge,” Wing said.He straightened, his wings grating against the wall behind him.

Deadlock snorted, shaking his head again. “You never understood me, Wing.” His head tilted to the opposite wall. “Revenge.Simplistic.” He sounded insulted.

“Well then, what is this all about?”

“Proving the same point to you you were trying to prove to me.” Deadlock leaned forward, the crest of his helm catching Wing’s. He tilted up, drawing the jet’s face up with it, optics blue as ice in the gold wash, mouthplates hard against Wing’s.

“What point is that?” Wing asked, trying to draw his head back, caught between Deadlock’s voracious smile and the unforgiving wall.

“Superiority, Wing,” Deadlock said, burying his rough laughter in a hard kiss.

Wing’s hands came up, against the white spaulders—so familiar, the designs of Crystal City—yet seemingly over something alien and ugly and hard. Everything Dai Atlas had warned him of. Everything he’d refused to believe.He pushed against the armor, trying to make space, tear his mouth free. “Force,” he managed. “Ownership.”

Deadlock caught one of Wing’s mouthplates, biting down. “And what,” he asked, around the bite, optics blue, coy sparks, “would you call what you did to me?”


	2. Chapter 2

_**Meridian pt 2**_  
R  
IDW Meridian AU  
Deadlock/Wing, Lockdown  
sticky (non graphic), noncon.

  
Wing cried out, Drift’s hands hard on his wrists, pinning him to the ground. Deadlock, he thought, biting down another sound of pure pain.  In the darkness of the small room, the white armor, blue optics, seemed to glow, as though from some hidden power, as Deadlock jammed a knee against Wing’s thigh. Deadlock wanted his pain, Wing thought.  He was venting some seemingly endless well of rage, upon Wing’s body. And Wing could endure. He had endured worse. 

It didn’t make the pain stop. It didn’t make the other hurt lessen, either: that this was Drift, the mech he’d saved, the mech he’d poured his spark into remaking, into showing him hope and peace and beauty.

And that this was the coin in which he was repaid.

The mouth covered his, hot and hard, bruising his lip plates, as if drinking in his cry of pain. 

“What’s the matter, Wing?” Deadlock laughed, breaking the kiss, lowering his body onto the jet’s, grinding his pelvic frame against Wing’s.

“Why me?”

“Why me?” Deadlock parroted back, half taunting.  But only half.

“Drift,” Wing whimpered, trying to twist his wrists free.  “You needed help. I wanted to help you. It’s what we do. It’s the best of what we are capable of.”

“You see how well that turned out.”  Deadlock gave a twisted grin, shoving the jet’s knees aside with his own.  He ground his frame over the jet’s, metal against metal.  He wedged his face into Wing’s throat, biting, sucking on the cables, growling possessively.

“What,” Wing gasped, trying to turn his head, open his throat against Deadlock’s bite, “are you going to do with me?”

The laugh vibrated against him, sending dark ripples over his net, like liquid amethyst.  “Take you. As much as I want.”  One hand, as if demonstrating, crept down between their bodies, squeezing at the interface hatch. 

Despite himself, Wing arched into the touch, too laden with memories of what that touch used to be like, of Drift’s clumsy, yearning touches.  “What will that do?” Wing whispered.

Deadlock’s growl melted into a shadowy purr. “Show you your place, Wing.”  The hand squeezed again, thumb finding the release.  Wing squirmed, but Deadlock’s hand slipped down, fingertips almost gentle over the valve cover.  “You had your chance to try to turn me. Now it’s,” the valve cover clicked aside, Wing shuddering with involuntary desire. Deadlock had learned, through those long slow months, all the secrets of Wing’s body, “my turn.” 

[***]

Deadlock strode to the small ship’s bridge.  Lockdown cast one glance over his shoulder, and turned back, showily, to the monitor in front of him.  Trying, Deadlock thought, to tell Deadlock he was cargo.

Deadlock was not cargo. Not a bounty.  “Arrival.”

“Soon enough.” Lockdown’s voice said quite the opposite—not soon enough, that he couldn’t wait to unload Deadlock.   
Deadlock snorted. He didn’t much care for Lockdown’s company, either. Mercenary.  He didn’t believe. He didn’t have the vision Megatron had.  A soldier for hire, barely better than an Autobot.  Because at least Lockdown was honest about what he was.

“Pretty reward,” Deadlock said, studying the spiked shoulders.

“I’d say I’ve earned it,” Lockdown replied, without turning.

“Earned it. You found me.”

“Better for you I found you than Turmoil.”

Deadlock shrugged. Was that supposed to be frightening? “Better for you. And Turmoil.” 

A growl and Lockdown flicked a dark glance over his shoulder. “You seem fairly confident Megatron will be happy to see you.”  
A bark of a laugh. “He and I have…history.”  Understatement.  A reunion he was almost looking forward to. 

“That why you brought the bribe? So confident in his indulgence.”

Bribe. It took a handful of kliks to sink through Deadlock’s processor. “Wing is mine,” he snarled, glaring daggers at the seated back.   
The broad shoulders arced into a shrug, the voice was decidedly noncommittal. “If you say so.”

A flare of real anger.  Wing was his.  He’d paid for the mech, in every way imagined. Wing was his trophy, if nothing else.  “I do.” 

A chuff of laughter. “We’ll see.” 

Deadlock felt his fists ball, hard and ready.  Hit him, part of his mind thought.  But another pulled back, telling him it would be better to prove Lockdown wrong.  Let him see. Let him see how Wing was Deadlock’s, how Megatron valued Deadlock and his wants.

Let him see.

Then kill him.

[***]

“You don’t need to bind me,” Wing said, quietly, obediently holding his wrists out. “I have no place to go.”  All the agony of a mech who has lost his entire world, thrice over, in his voice.

“Have my own reasons,” Deadlock said, snapping the cuffs around the deceptively powerful wrists.  He couldn’t resist the possessive stroke of his hands over Wing’s, pulling on the fingers, curling into the palms.  He stepped back, studying Wing through the optics of a stranger—the armor gleaming white, except where marred from the battle. The posture still erect, supple, the shoulders broad and high, looking unbroken, proud. 

Deadlock fought the urge to take Wing right there. Not to bring down that quiet pride, but to touch it, claim it, own it.

He shook it off.  “Come on.” 

“Where are we going?”  An almost worried pinch of the mouth that Deadlock had to resist kissing away.  “If I even have the right to know.”

Deadlock smirked. “To meet Megatron.” He tugged on the cuffs, pulling Wing forward. “Unlike your Circle, we’re not afraid of being ‘contaminated’ by newcomers.”  The smile on his face turned sweet as antifreeze.  “In fact, the other way around.”  



	3. Meridian part 3

_  
**Meridian part 3**   
_   


NC-17  
IDW AU  
Deadlock, Wing, Megatron  
dx sticky, dubcon, violent sex  


Megatron kept his back to the entryway a beat longer than necessary, to drive the message home. He was…not pleased with Deadlock.But he was willing to hear him out. On his own terms.He admitted—to himself at least—to some curiosity.What story would he tell? Would he dare, after all this time, lie to Megatron?

Footsteps.Three sets. Interesting.Lockdown’s long stride, the still-familiar almost-stomp of Deadlock, that seemed to stir long dead echoes of memory, and a third set, even and light. That third set more than anything else, drew his attention. He turned, his broad backplate a mass of movement.

Deadlock’s face, set in the same jutting, almost challenging expression Megatron remembered from all those aeons ago, tilted up to his.“Megatron,” he gave a brusque nod. Deadlock himself, rearmored, only the face the same, the hard mouth, the burning, intense optics. Even blue, they were Deadlock’s. Unmistakable.Megatron would recognize Deadlock through any disguise—the face, that voice, always on the edge of hoarse.

Businesslike, calm. As though nothing had happened.And yet.

And yet, beside him, wrists bound, a small white jet, armor of an ancient design, optics a gold color Megatron hadn’t seen in ages.

He brought his gaze and all its fearsome weight back to the other mech. “Deadlock.”

And waited.

A confident quirk of the mouth. “Ready to get back to the front.” Never readier. Megatron could feel it singing in his circuits, the pent up need to attack.Deadlock: always absolutely clear and obvious, as though scorning deceit.

“Are you.” A deliberately insolent, evaluating stare, raking up and down the white armor, the swords.

“You need me.”A twitch of the lipplates, the first sign of uncertainty, the hands curling over the sword hilts, as if for reassurance.

“No, Deadlock. I can make use of you. That’s different—quite different—from need.” A red-opticked flare of anger. He felt the gold optics on him, studying, curious. Unafraid. “And this? Have you brought me a present, Deadlock?”

Deadlock stiffened. “A trophy. This one’s personal.”

“Personal. That’s…new.”

“He’s mine.”A bold flare of anger, the black hands balling into fists. Megatron felt an old, familiar smile curl over his mouthplates, a rising thrum in his energon lines.Deadlock was always…feisty.

“And you are mine. Or have you forgotten what you pledged, Deadlock?”

Deadlock vibrated, tight with anger.Remembering. And that familiar twitch, that hot flare of the optics, even though blue, stirred up old memories.Ancient, and desire flamed out from under all the encrusted cynicism. There was something about Deadlock, a sharp blade, which pierced through irrelevancies.

Megatron felt a bladed smile curve over his mouthplates. “I see I need to remind you.”

A sharp grinding sound: Deadlock’s mouthplates grating together. Megatron could practically taste the fine shavings. And he wanted to. Now.

Delay irritated him as much as it aroused him. And he wanted to hone both edges on Deadlock’s hardness. He let his optics rake down Deadlock’s frame, obviously, insolently, smirking at the tenseness in the frame.

“Not here.” The voice hard, flat, but not entirely unwilling. Of course not: Deadlock surely remembered, too.

He gave a short, amused nod. “My quarters, then. “ He gave a half turn, mocking a courteous gesture toward the door, halting abruptly. A bit theatrically, perhaps, but Deadlock had always responded to performance. He remembered how Deadlock had been captivated, rapt, by his words, on Cybertron, the glow of ideals flaming over his entire frame.“Unless you’d rather your possession joined us.” It felt good, that mocking grin and even better the startled sharp dismay on Deadlock’s face. “Later, then, perhaps.”

Deadlock balked. “No harm comes to him.” A glance, possessive, hot, and…something more, back to Wing. Interesting.

Deadlock balled his fists, resolute. “No harm.”

“None,” Megatron agreed, easily. “So long as you…suffice.”

[***]

Deadlock swung as soon as the door closed behind them, a fist, a solid mass of metal and fury, swinging at Megatron’s midsection.His spaulders echoed the move, carving a solid white arc into the room’s dimness. His fist contacted the abdominal armor, metal giving with a satisfying crunch. He gave a pleased snarl, that died abruptly as Megatron countered with a hammerblow to his shoulder.

“Maybe you haven’t forgotten,” Megatron laughed.

Deadlock swept his opposite leg out, footplate aimed in a vicious kick to the back of Megatron’s knee.It buckled, Deadlock feeling the rocking of the center of gravity above it as he swept to follow through with a fist to the jaw dropping down to range.He felt a dark surge of confidence at the startled flash over Megatron’s face. All that time, all those hits he’d taken at Wing’s hands. He had learned something, after all.

But Deadlock was a Decepticon, after all. He pulled back, keeping some of his skill in reserve. Better not show his hand.Not yet.And not when he wanted the end result of this as much as Megatron.

The next blow staggered him back, a series of juddering steps, that terminated in a slam of his shoulders against the wall behind him, and Megatron’s face, split between a sneer and a hiss of desire, hovering over his.

Deadlock’s optics blazed, the blue lights catching in a net of fine scratches over Megatron’s face plates, nearly burnishinghim in azure.

“Some things never change,” Megatron said, before pressing forward, bent over him, mouth hard and urgent on Deadlock’s. Deadlock tipped his head up, parting his mouthplates, the kiss simply another level of contest, another field of battle.He could feel the heat of Megatron’s cooling systems blasting between them, stirring the lust-raised heat of his own body. His hands clawed at the heavier armor, scratching, yet pulling closer, curls of metal spiraling out from under his touch.

Megatron picked him up, bodily, swinging the body in a fast, tight arc, so that Deadlock felt the air like a cool whistle through his footplates, slamming him against the ground.Equalizing their height difference, exacerbating Megatron’s control, as the larger mech pressed down upon him. Deadlock snarled, one arm, bent for the narrow gap between their bodies, swinging the elbow like a hammer against Megatron’s jaw.

The mouth spluttered open, a bellow of pain mingling, melting into laughter. One of the large hands braced over Deadlock’s chassis, fingers splayed out wide, the other scraping, obvious, possessive, down the frame, to grip the pelvic span.Deadlock thrashed, but they both knew that for the act it was.They both wanted this. And both needed to pretend it was something else.

Megatron thrust the hatch open, rubbing rough fingers down the newly exposed metal, pushing the thighs apart. A dark laugh rippled from the vocalizer, feeling the heat from the still-covered valve.Wanting, even as Deadlock himself struggled.He sent the command to his own interface equipment, autoreleasing his spike, grinning, growling with pleasure as the blue optics flitted down between them. Knowing. Wanting.

He swung himself up, cupping a hand around the white helm, spike sliding from its housing as he shifted his weight. He smirked down at Deadlock, reveling in the hard hate and resistance on the face. The Autobot-blue of the optics aroused him, tempted him to compulsion.“This is punishment, Deadlock,” he murmured, thrusting the rounded socket of the spike’s tip against the mouth, cool lubricant glossing over the mouth.

Deadlock snarled, blazing humiliation, but his mouth parted, twisting bitterly, accepting his punishment, accepting his rebuke. The hot mouth enveloped the spike’s tip, and Megatron twitched as a glossa flicked against a node. Continuing the contest, turning his own arousal against him in little bittersweet jolts of charge. Megatron remembered Deadlock’s history, the bitter tale trickling out, slowly, haltingly, over decacycles—the life Deadlock had led in the gutters, what he had traded, sold to survive. And how he hated to be reminded of it.

The point had been made. Megatron owned Deadlock, had pulled him free at last from that sort of filthy exchange.

He snatched one of the white-armored knees, throwing it across Deadlock’s body, twisting the smaller mech’s hips up onto the side, settling himself down onto the thigh, his spike hovering at the mouth of the valve. He paused, building the anticipation for both of them, feeling Deadlock’s anger, longing, fury, desire, loyalty, all the things that made him irreplaceable, made sending Lockdown after him worth it.

Megatron drove in, sinking his spike into the valve, enveloping himself in Deadlock’s ardent heat. The valve felt…different.Plush and clinging.

No, it was just the strain of memory, of time and distance that had made him forget.Deadlock was still Deadlock. The armor was different, the optics blue, but the writhing, the cursing voice, the high tide of desire, were all familiar. Familiar enough that his own desire seized him, and he found himself thrusting in with wild abandon, slipping on the edge of control.

Beneath him, around his spike,Deadlock squirmed, thrashing against him, ventilations harsh and rasping. His own hands grabbed at Deadlock's frame, wanting nothing more than to claw more excited snarl and cries of pain and lust from the smaller mech.

"Mine," he heard himself snarl, as the tide of lust swept over him, annihilating his better judgment, stripping away everything that the two bodies ceaselessly, relentlessly using each other.

He felt the change suddenly, in the slick heated lubrication of the valve; the sudden subtle shift of pressure and shape at the valve’s ceiling. And he realized that Deadlock remembered. He felt a possessive, feral smile crest across his mouth, crashing ahead of a tide of desire. The overload swept through him, the blazing heat, a hard cascading brush that shot through his systems, igniting them. transfluid spilling from his spike into the clutching valve. He felt the calipers seized and grasp at him, holding his spike fast, as the transfluid was taken up into the data chamber.

Deadlock shuddered underneath him, optics flaring and dimming, sated, turned inward as the rush of data flooded him like a secondary overload, the smaller, clawing black fingers softening now almost…clinging.Deadlock did always turn almost gentle after interfacing, as though the overload burned off the rough edges leaving something tender and fragile behind.

Megatron bent low, curling his spine to bring his mouth against Deadlock’s, feeling the mouth find his in apoignant, gentle kiss, tasting the change in Deadlock’s desire like some fine, rare vintage, a vestige of his own lubricant almost sweet on his glossa. He broke the kiss slowly, nipping at the mouthplates, optics hovering over Deadlock’s.“You fight better than I remember,” he murmured.

“Wing,” Deadlock said, his voice raw from snarling, exhausted, satiated.

“So it was more than his prettiness that drew you?” A goad, a taunt, deliberate.

The mouth hardened under his, optics hooding.“Long story.”

Megatron lay himself down, weight next to the white chassis, one hand still possessively on the chestplate, spike lodged, tingling andquiescent, in the snug valve’s velvety hold.“We have, it seems, time.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dubcon, sticky

Wing had gone beyond worry but not beyond caring. After a long while, a Decepticon guard had come for him, leading him to what would apparently be Deadlock’s quarters. A large, stark room, much bigger than even his apartments in Crystal City, but blank, empty except for a sort of thick, heavy air.  The guard raked insolent optics over Wing before he left, muttering something like “if he wasn’t Deadlock’s,” before turning away.

Wing didn’t know if the phrase comforted him or not, and he spent the next cycles, locked in that room, pondering, weighing, his still-bound wrists helpless in front of him. 

So that was Megatron, he thought, settling himself, after a long time, on the berth, scuffling his heels against the cool metal to push him into the corner in a tight bound ball.  He was…not what Wing had expected, entirely. Then again, Wing couldn’t quite say, if pushed, what he had expected.  He had expected hardness, hostility. He had not quite expected the…almost fond familiarity under the hard words the two had flung at each other.

He didn’t know what to do with that. Or himself, so he let himself drift into the hot, uncomfortable, restless recharge of a mech with no future. Much, he thought, his last conscious thought, like it had been for Drift, back in the gutters of Cybertron.  Just like Drift.

 

[***]

 

Wing awoke to hands on his wrists, his optics flying open, swept with alarm.

…to see Deadlock, bending over them, tapping in the release code on the wrist restraints. The mech reeked of interfacing—heated circuitry, the sweet tang of lubricant, but his armor bore traces of rough treatment—scrapes and dents, hot in patches from active autorepair.

The restraints fell free, clattering to the berth between them. Deadlock looked up, the blue optics lambent with something Wing couldn’t read. Deadlock reached for his helm, cupping around it, drawing it down to his into a kiss so gentle that Wing almost stiffened in surprise.  Deadlock moved, rolling his weight back, pulling Wing on top of him like a blanket.  Wing could feel some need lick against him, something flame from Deadlock’s EM field against his, letting himself unfold, stretching out over the other mech, their white armor seeming to mingle and glow in the dimness. The other’s glossa probed, almost cautiously, inside Wing’s mouth, seeking, tasting, while the fingers glided gently over the audial flares.  Despite himself, Wing shivered.

But this was different than before—Deadlock wasn’t deliberately riling his desire, using his own body against him. This was almost pleading, coaxing, and Wing’s body responded, his own hands, newly freed, stroking gently down the heated frame, his thighs sliding over Deadlock’s limbs, as the other mech parted them, raising his knees to create a sort of cradle around Wing’s hips: opening, offering.

It was a strange moment, silent, but communicating everything.

Wing found he couldn’t resist—the warmth, the wanting from the other mech tugged at him in small tendrils that prickled like hope: that Drift wasn’t lost to him, not utterly. That somewhere under that hard face was the softness he remembered and if there, he could uncover once again.  He returned the kiss, his mouth gentle and eager, giving a pleased clickchirr as the other’s hands found and stroked his folded wings.

The hips surged up against his, the pelvic span grinding along his, importuning.  Wing’s hand slipped between them, releasing the hatches with trembling fingers, his mouth stilling on Deadlock’s as the other’s hands hooked around his hips, guiding him to sheathe his spike in the valve.  They both hung, clinging to each other, for a long moment, the shock of familiar and strangeness, past and now, rippling the air between them, Deadlock’s optics flaring wide and blue under Wing’s gold. 

Wing began moving, rocking in his slow, careful way, a rising, steady surge against Deadlock. It was slow, languorous, as though they had all the time in the world, or more: the power, in moments like this, to make time stop.

That was what Deadlock really wanted, Wing thought: the stop of time, the denial of the present. And he shouldn’t, but he wanted it too, to deny the power of this dark place, of the louring cloud that was Megatron, of the hard touches Deadlock had visited on him earlier. 

Their bodies moved together, in a sweet, wordless unison, Deadlock’s hips tipping up to meet Wing’s gentle thrusts, their hands stroking at the seams, the charge that accumulated there, fingertips stirring a fairydust of desire, until Wing’s own want overcame him and he shuddered into release.  His fluid spilled between them, some scalding testament to the strange bond, and Deadlock’s legs twined through Wing’s, his hands clinging, holding the jet in place more firmly, more thoroughly, than despair and manacles.

Deadlock’s mouth found his again, though his optics were closed, somnolent and heavy, plucking one last kiss from Wing before he seemed to tumble into recharge.  Wing stilled himself. He did not deserve pleasure, or joy. He had brought about, in the height of his arrogance, the downfall of his home, his city, what he had sworn to protect. And instead of being allowed the ultimate penalty for that betrayal—a chance to redeem his mistake with the price of his life—he was here, in the arms of their destroyer, a kiss like hope still burning on his mouth. And Wing lay, caught in the snare of the Decepticon’s embrace, wondering what had become of him, if he was already lost.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Deadlock woke, too early, long training jerking him awake.  Wing still lay over him, like a warm shield, wings flopped open over him, the helm nestled against his shoulder, cheek on his chassis. The jet’s spike had slipped from his valve, transfluid slicked and sticky down his thighs in a drying silvery smear. 

Deadlock fought the softness welling up around his spark. No. Wing was his, Wing’s desire served his. Nothing more.  He’d wanted last night, wanted to taste some of that sweetness, wanting to soothe the ache and rage left from Megatron.  Old memories, stirred up like silt, clouding his view. And Wing’s gentle movements had rocked him, soothed him. The release, to him, was just that: a letting off of tension, a delicious, delirious gentleness, a removal of pressure and pain.

Wing shifted atop him, a soft whimper wringing from his vocalizer, and his face flickered into an expression of something like pain.  Deadlock reached up, carefully, stroking down the cool cheek.  The gold optics flared to life, and for a klik—half a klik—they were the warm, open optics he remembered.

They clouded, abruptly, the gold going brassy and dark, the lower mouthplate pushing up in worry. The pang of regret was bittersweet.

“Dri-Deadlock.”  Wing shifted back, almost scrambling off Deadlock’s body.  Deadlock caught him under the upper arms, hauling him back for a  kiss that started hard, an intrusion, a possession, and ended, gentling against the other’s mouth.  Deadlock pulled away, drawing the worried lip-plate out between his dentae, his own mouth curled into a smile as though stabilized by Wing’s hesitation. 

“Wing,” he whispered, his lips touching Wing’s at the first consonant.

The silence between them was pregnant with the dead past, an unspawned future.

[***]

“Do you remember…,” Megatron tapped the mapboard in front of him, calling up archival data.  An old battle, so long that it took almost two kliks before Deadlock’s memory made the match. 

He nodded, mouth tight.  How sure he had been back then.  But no.  Wing had rattled him, but not shaken the foundation. That foundation had been laid millennia ago, in the gutters of Cybertron.  Nothing could shake that: a lifetime of pain and humiliation, deprivation and contempt. A few short weeks among pacifists barely sloughed the accreted surface.

“Turmoil.” 

Deadlock felt his shoulders shift, the Great Sword’s weight moving against its attachment points.  The challenge he knew was coming, had known since he disabled Turmoil’s ship, commandeered the escape pod.  The question that called everything into question.

“Turmoil,” he echoed.  A space in time, Megatron giving him time to speak before he pressured. “Coward. Cautious.” 

“He was winning.”

“I was winning,” Deadlock snapped. “ _I_ was.”

A tilt of the optic under Megatron’s heavy helm and some of the hardness on his face fell away.  “Insisting on credit, Deadlock?”

“No.” His fists balled—the same fists, he’d swear it, just under white armor now.  His back struts stiffened at the slight. “Just don’t want to give credit to someone who hasn’t earned it.”  An important distinction, one Deadlock would notice. 

Megatron sighed. “I sent you out there to win.”

“I did.”

“Strategy, Deadlock.  There’s a larger picture.”

“Victory. All that matters.” The blue optics blazed, fervid, intense.

“Not if we stretch supply too far. Not if we expose our flanks in the process.”  Megatron’s voice had the tone of one gathering up the threads of long-frayed patience. “It’s not like on Cybertron.”

Deadlock’s mouth took a petulant set. “War is war.”  

“No.” Megatron leaned forward. “Combat. That’s what you know.  You do not know war.”

The mouth flattened. “I do my job.”

A smile flirted with the corners of Megatron’s mouth. “You do.”  He let slip a small compliment. “Very few better.”

Deadlock bridled, as though the compliment almost burned.  “What do you want?”

Megatron smiled. “Same thing I always have, Deadlock. Everything.”

[***]

“Wing.” Megatron said the name slowly, almost intoning it, as though a bit perplexed and tasting  the name like some old vintage, some wine of Cybertron he wasn’t quite sure hadn’t vinegared.

The jet stood, silent, head unbowed. Not arrogant, not insolent, merely…curious.  Megatron hadn’t been looked at like that in a long time.

He wasn’t sure he cared for the experience. 

Megatron leaned forward, optics blazing the same malevolent red that had illuminated the churned up ground of the arena, all those aeons ago.  “Do you remember me, little jet?”

“Yes. From Cybertron. I remember.”  The voice was leaden with some dense untangleable emotion.

A flat smile, refusing to be gratified. He sat back.  “One of the Knights of Cybertron,” he said, amused. “I should be honored.” 

“We no longer call ourselves that.” Wing’s voice was quiet, almost reverently hushed, as though talking of sacred things.

“You no longer call yourselves anything.” Megatron’s smile grew barbs.  “Or have you forgotten. You are the very last of your kind.”

A tremor passed through Wing’s frame, a head-to-footplate movement, as though Megatron’s words were the sharp shock of the wrong current.

Megatron laughed.  “The last of the Knights.” He let his optics roam down the white frame, clearly measuring, clearly finding Wing lacking.

“Yes.” The word was barely audible, a sound wrung from despair’s pith. Wing sagged as though the admission had exhausted him.

“And look at where your ideals have gotten you, Wing.”  Megatron skimmed his hand, palm up, in a gesture to take in the entirety of the flagship. 

For a long moment, Wing wavered in silence, his mouthplates working with emotion. “And you,” he whispered, finally. “Where have yours gotten you?”

A panoply of emotions on the battle-burnished face, before settling into a smirk. Megatron leaned back, crossing one ankle on the opposite knee, one fingertip idly drumming the arm of the command chair.  “You tell me.”

[***]

Wing staggered back to Deadlock’s quarters. There was no comfort there, and only the very thinnest veneer of familiarity. Though even that, he knew, was illusion. 

The last of the Knights.  The last.  Betrayed, although unknowing, lost by your hand.

What have I done?  The deepest, most agonizing wrench of despair: What have I done?  What have I wrought through my arrogance and blindness?

The answer was too enormous to put into words, simply a huge, formless presence, flashing like lightning with images once-familiar, once so well loved: fellow Knights, whose faces he’d never see again.  His quarters, and all the fond detritus of peace.  The beautiful parks, the library—things he had helped make, things he had saved, now lost, shattered, broken, gone.

He collapsed to the ground, the door whooshing shut with an impassive modesty behind him. One hand moved to cover the seemingly aching void of his spark. What had he done? A question whose answer required more courage than he had to face, much less answer.

Failure, at last.  Weak, as Deadlock had always suspected. Wing curled around the hard hot knot of agony, sobs wringing from some place deep in his body. 

He had never felt so lost, not even in the flaming wreckage of Altihex. He had done this. His trust, his judgment had damned them all.

It was perhaps only justice that he alone survived.  He did not deserve the companionship of the Knights in death, and his life, every cycle, was a constant reminder, an earned torment, a repudiation that he had richly earned. 

He bowed before the rightness of it, that his punishment was to live.


	6. Chapter 6

NC-17  
IDW Meridian AU  
Deadlock, Wing, Megatron  
sticky, angst, dubcon  
  
  
 **[The past's shadows stretch even in the darkness of the present](http://shadow-vector.livejournal.com/166263.html#cutid1)  
**

“Who did this?”  Deadlock’s voice, grey and sharp, a shadow falling over where Wing lay, huddled on the floor. Hands tugged Wing out of his sobbing curl. Wing quailed from the touch, unable to bear the ignominy, the powerlessness of being Deadlock’s plaything now.  He would have pleaded if he trusted himself to make words. But the touch was impassive, neutral, gliding down his limbs without thought of arousal.  Puzzlement on Drift’s face, as his hands came up clean—without energon, rough spurs of broken armor, any sign of injury. “Who?” Deadlock repeated.

Wing shook his head, hunching, miserable, even as Deadlock scooped him up, carrying him, even balled up, to the berth’s putative comfort.

A long moment, Deadlock’s brow furrowing. Wing stayed curled in a lump of recrimination.  A frustrated sound, Drift pushing up abruptly, crossing to the small private storage locker his rank had earned him. The whole room, though cramped compared to Wing’s quarters, was luxurious for a starship. 

Wing felt a ration of energon pressed into his hands. His fingers closed numbly around the cube, as Deadlock’s hands lifted it to his mouth.

“Drink.”  Half an order, the optics blue over the rim of the cube.

Wing…tried. The energon sparkled, effervesced in his mouth, warm and rich—too rich and he felt his throat close, his intakes disobey.  Droplets dribbled from his mouth, a heated trail tingling down his chin.

A frustrated sound, and Deadlock snatched the cube, moving it to a side shelf. One thumb, scarred from long-past battles, swept the spilled trail, raising it to his own mouth.  The gesture might have been tender, had it not been that it was Deadlock, his captor, and probably motivated from some ancient conservation protocol.  Deadlock had been in the war so long it had become part of his base programming. 

“Rest,” Deadlock ordered, turning away. “You’ll feel better after recharge.”  The voice had a note of long, hard-earned experience.  He planted himself at the far end of the berth, back toward Wing, straddling the corner. 

…but I don’t deserve to….

[***]

Wing fell into some restless recharge, cycles later, only to jerk awake, sensors taut and wired.  Nothing. Deadlock still sat, powered down, immobile, in the shadow-filled room. The darkness seemed to yawn between them, gnawing at Wing’s spark.  He rolled forward, hooking one arm around Deadlock’s waist, tugging the mech backward, downward, almost surprised to feel the frame follow his guidance, until Deadlock lay next to Wing. 

Wing buried his face against the flat of Deadlock’s chassis, feeling an arm creep around his shoulders. And he hated that he came to Deadlock for any sort of comfort, any consolation.

But he was weak. As Deadlock had said, had seen, he was weak, and he’d rather cling to the familiar hum of systems against him than ache alone. Even now.

Even so. 

[***]

Wing woke later—not a harsh jerk this time, but a slow, gentle onlining. All the worse, he decided, when the sharp reality slashed through the drowsy torpor.  He was here, alone, and all of his friends, everything he’d sworn to protect, was dead and in ruins.

Deadlock was gone, the berth where he had been long cooled, empty under Wing’s hand.  He had no comfort.  He deserved none.  He rolled to his back, wings tight, staring at the smooth ductwork above him, the metal cool and lonely under him, the another long stretch of day spooling out before him.  A time was he would have clung to life with both hands. Now, he held on loosely, almost daring it to break his grip.

[***]

“Deadlock.”  The mouth curled into a smile. “You have missed me, apparently.”

A hard snort, the smaller mech pushing into Megatron’s quarters, ducking under the arm. “Wing,” he barked.

“The jet.”

“MY jet.”

“Yours.” 

Deadlock’s mouth flattened, as he rounded on Megatron. “What did you do to him?”

Megatron tilted his head, amused. “Merely spoke.”

“Merely.” The chin jutted up. “Like you don’t use words as weapons.”

A bark of a laugh. “I _have_ missed you, Deadlock.”

A twitch of the mouth, one hand jerking into a fist.  Of course. The language Deadlock spoke.  Megatron swept closer, arm hooking under the deep spaulders, tugging the smaller mech against him.  “Tell me,” he murmured. “Tell me about your jet.”

Defiance in Deadlock’s optics, warm and familiar, through time. The fist bloomed, shoving against the heavier chassis, even as Megatron drove him back to the wall. He grunted, metal crunching, pressed between the large frame and the wall.

“You own nothing,” Megatron said, quietly, hands running over the white frame—so different, and yet still, the motions under it, the spark animating it, were deliciously familiar. Still Deadlock, as though the war hadn’t changed him other than to sharpen a blade already keen. Megatron had seen too many soldiers broken by the war, too many horrors crushing them down, but Deadlock…something sustained the smaller mech, some hot-burning inner flame that charred away doubt.

“But I,” he whispered, one hand sliding under the white jaw, tilting it up, “own you.” 

It wasn’t a kiss or anything close: more like a bite between them, dentae grating, fighting for dominance, for control over the other and their own rampant desires.  He felt the smaller hands clawing at him, torn between hurting and arousing. 

“Remember,” he heard himself say, half a question, half a command, as the tendrils of memory seemed to unspool from some place behind Deadlock, twining around him, pulling them both under.

[***]

_Cybertron, Kaon_

_It had gone beyond that first time, that one time Soundwave had told him would bind Deadlock to him.  Deadlock never seemed to want it, at first. There was always this wall, this block, as though Deadlock did not interface, had no desire. But once awakened, the smaller mech’s desires were ravenous.  Just…private._

_And he never approached Megatron, always waiting to be summoned, and giving nothing away, remaining as still and impassive as if he were there to receive orders, until Megatron heaved him close, hands delivering the message.  Even back then, some hesitation, the way one might rock backwards before throwing oneself headlong over a precipice; as though Deadlock was gathering himself for some great leap._

_But once he leapt, he plummeted headlong, throwing himself into desire with an abandon that told some story of long repression in the gutters._

_Like now, his hot hands splayed on Megatron’s square chest framing, dark thighs straddling Megatron’s hips. His mouth was parted in a loose shape of desire, optics dim, body surging upward as he rode himself over Megatron’s spike. Megatron’s own hands rode lightly on the smaller hips, less to guide than to feel the pistons fire, the gyros shift and whirl under his hands, and through them, over them, the buzzing hum of building charge._

_Deadlock flung back his head, crying out a sharp sound, as the overload crackled through his body, his throat bared, cables exposed, his spinal struts shuddering.  Megatron gave a hard groan, his systems firing, hands gouging into the narrow hips._

_The smaller mech dropped forward, his hands slack, chassis thudding against Megatron’s, shivering as the datafluid hit his systems, injecting Megatron’s own memories, experiences in Deadlock’s own. Deadlock always softened after this, becoming almost pliant, clinging. It was exactly what Megatron wanted: complete, utter loyalty, vulnerability, laid out this time on his chassis, orange-red optics dim and almost adoring. A reward deeper than Soundwave had led him to believe._

_He wondered, idly, as always, what memories Deadlock got, how the process worked. Was it a coherent, discrete chunk of timeline, or a random kaleidoscope of thought and sensation?_

_The head tipped forward, the mouth, warm and insistent, finding his jawline, nipping the edge.  Megatron had had willing lovers before, compliant, wanting his pleasure, but there was always some motive for that, some self-interest.  This, though…there was no need. No motive._

_Deadlock pushed back, mouth trailing over the squared chassis, lingering over the Decepticon insignia, glossa tracing its edges in a long slide of electricity, before descending lower, wedging his legs between Megatron’s thighs.  He paused, pooling himself between the parted legs, optics drowsy with half sated desire as he looked up the broad expanse. He lowered his head, slowly, the glossa sliding up the length of the still-turgid spike, holding Megatron’s gaze._

_Another of the paradoxes of Deadlock: that he hated what he had had to learn to survive in the gutters, but that he was so very, very good at it. His glossa, curled around the spike, engine revving softly in what might have been a whore’s trick, or might just as easily have been genuine pleasure.  All he knew, all that mattered, was that now, someone was wanting to pleasure him, concentrating on his desires, his responses with an attention and focus that couldn’t help but be flattering._

_He groaned, quietly, as the mouth drew up, pulling across the spike’s still sensitized nodes. There was a point at which questioning, doubting motive, stood in the way of immediacy, of the sheer, solid fact of a mouth on his spike, small hands sliding palmwide over his thighs. Motive didn’t matter so much as the fact that this was freely given, and entirely different from the hard, fast, almost brutal interfacing he’d had in the mines. Those were just releases of tension, letting something go, like a valve releasing steam. This was…different, gathering something together, his entire body filling, thrumming with color and sound and sensation._

_As the overload burst like a nova across his systems, datafluid spilling into the waiting, wanting mouth, the thought crossed his mind, sharp as a papercut, that Deadlock, perhaps, loved him._

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have like 30K words of this on a file. Whoops. Should post some if it, maybe? Dunno. Reminder: this is my id fic. It's dark and entirely self indulgent.

PG-13  
IDW Meridian AU  
Deadlock/Wing, Turmoil, Megatron  
no warnings  
  
  
  


Turmoil raged.  And he could rage quietly, but that…served no point.

“You cannot allow this to stand, Megatron.” His optics blazed behind his visor.

“I can’t.”  Flat challenge in the voice. “You tell me what to do, Turmoil?”

Turmoil bristled. “It diminishes your authority.”

“How.” 

“Think of the message it sends.” Turmoil bristled.  The same height as Megatron, built off a similar class of frame, he straightened, used to using his size to intimidate—a bit off balance that, obviously, it didn’t work against Megatron. 

“The message is that if you’re good you get allowances,” Megatron said.  “It pushes us to achieve.”

“I have achieved,” Turmoil said. “I’m a field commander.”

“And Deadlock is…Deadlock.” Perfectly reasonable tone…for now.  Megatron didn’t like his decisions questioned.  “He’s proven himself to me.”  He tilted back. How far would Turmoil take this? To the point of challenging Megatron’s judgment?

Apparently not. Yet. “He’s changed.” Turmoil said. “You might be wary.”

  
Your concern for my well-being is flattering, Turmoil.” Powdery sarcasm in the tone. “I assure you. I can handle Deadlock.” A flare of challenge—Turmoil had not.

“His mechs despised him.”

“They feared him, Turmoil,” Megatron said, evenly. “And you might think why that was.”  He smirked. “A mech only needs to fear Deadlock if he’s not pulling his own weight.”

“Foolishness,” Turmoil spat. He jutted his mask. “You’ll see.”

“I assure you,” Megatron said. “I can handle Deadlock.”  He thought back to the previous night. Oh Deadlock might have changed, but so had Megatron. And in all the ways that mattered, Deadlock was his. 

“You’ll see,” Turmoil said, tipping his helm down, optics a line of fire under his helm’s rim.

[***]

“Come on.”  Deadlock tapped Wing’s foot.  The jet still curled on the berth, but the cube on the shelf was empty. He’d noticed that, and taken some consolation in that. 

“What?”  Wing uncurled, optics still dimmed, his voice a soft croak.

“Come.” Deadlock beckoned with one hand.  “Follow me.”  He turned, heading to the door, without checking to see if Wing was following.

Why would he? Wing thought. I am his possession, his owned.  He levered himself off the berth, joints slow and stiff, his first steps shaky. Deadlock waited in the corridor, nodding as Wing crossed the threshold. 

“Anyone bothers you on this ship,” Deadlock said, “you tell me. And defend yourself, got it?”  He turned, blue optics fixed on Wing’s face until Wing nodded assent.  Deadlock gave a grunt, turning back up the corridor. 

Wing wanted to ask where they were going, but he bit down that want. No, Wing, you don’t get to want anything. Your curiosity is insignificant.  He followed Deadlock, aching at the familiarity of the frame in front of him. From the back, it was easier to remember him as Drift, without the hard line of his mouth, without the purple sigil on his chassis. He followed the other mech into a room, Deadlock barking a command to online lights. 

Deadlock turned, one corner of his mouth curling up into a smile. It almost seemed parodic.  He gestured with one palm. “Come on.” 

“Fight you?” Wing shook his head. “I’m not going to fight you, Deadlock.” His mouth threatened to betray him with a quiver until he bit down on it. “You’ve proved your point.”  

“Not about a point. Just…come on.” He feinted a blow.  Wing brought up an arm, almost without thought, to block it, even though they both knew it wouldn’t have landed, wouldn’t have done damage.  “Come on.” Another swing, another block with no retaliation.

Deadlock gave a half-growl, frustrated. His hands dropped by his side. “Fine. What do you want. You win, you get it. Just like before.”

Just like before.  Wing felt his tank heave, as if upending itself in his chassis. Nothing was ever just like before. It would never be that way again. “There’s nothing that I want,” Wing said, his voice flat, optics dropping to his hands. 

Deadlock shifted, giving an irritated chuff. “Stop…being like this.”

“Like what?”  No challenge in the voice. 

“Like…,” Deadlock shrugged, gesturing with his hand, at a loss. 

“Deadlock,” Wing said, gently. “You can’t imagine I’d be happy here.”

A quick, stifled growl.  “No, but…more than this.” 

More than this.  Wing’s shoulders jerked, as though around a sob. “Deadlock,” he said, his voice a cry of thin despair, “isn’t it enough that I am yours?”

The answer hung in the silence between them, raw and bleeding.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can never have enough

“Just a drink,” Megatron said, gesturing Deadlock to sit by him.

Deadlock frowned, but perched himself next to Megatron, hand cupping the cube pushed in front of him.  Resistant but obedient: Deadlock, in other words.  “Don’t need a drink.”

“And what do you need?”

“Mission. A command.”  Not greed, not from Deadlock.

“And here I thought you’d enjoy a break from the war.”

Deadlock glowered into his energon, as though scrying. And not liking what he was seeing. “Don’t need a break.”

“Not even to enjoy your conquest?” A restatement, a barb with a sharper point, one which was rewarded by a sharp hissing in-vent.  “Problems, Deadlock?” He didn’t even bother to try to mask the amusement in his voice.

“No.” Flat, sharp, like a lead slug.  And Megatron didn’t believe it. 

“Has he refused you?” Probing a wound, and examining a weakness he might need to exploit. Oh, he’d never thought, all those years ago, that he’d have mastered this strange unsubtle combat.

“No.” A scowl. “He can’t. He wouldn’t.”

“You want more.”  Megatron ran a thumb over the edge of his cube. “More than ownership. Conquest.”

Deadlock looked up, blue optics blazing like a nova. “Don’t you?”

[***]

“Lockdown.”  Turmoil’s voice was silky, the orange glow of his optics reducing the rest of his masked face into a study of highlights on the vid screen.

Lockdown managed a flat expression, which at least masked his contempt.  Turmoil: some  commander, so inept that his own Second mutinied.  And from all Lockdown had heard, Turmoil had lost control of the unit far, far before.  “What do you want?”

A soft, oily laugh. “Straight to business, are we?”

“Busy.”

“Ah. Busy doing the work of the Decepticon empire.”  Rasping sarcasm.

“I’m loyal enough.”  Oh, this old gibe.  A weapon so dull it didn’t even clunk against his defenses. 

“Enough.”   

“Enough not to get blinded by ideals.” Lockdown made a show of examining his hands. 

“Is that what you think I am?”  Riding the edge between annoyance and amusement.

“Does it even matter what I think?” Lockdown retorted.  Oh, Turmoil was blinded by something, all right.  Blind enough not to see his own biggest enemy as his Second. Blind enough not to see that revenge was fouling his own ambition.

“Not in the least,” Turmoil subsided, his voice forcibly mild. “However.  We have a mutual interest.”

“Do we?” Lockdown sneered, as if he wanted to know what it might be so he could cut it off.

“Deadlock.” 

He couldn’t prevent the sharp snarl from crossing his face. Deadlock.  Arrogant bastard. “What about him?”

Turmoil enjoyed—showily—a laugh.  “I see you’ve encountered his charm.”

“Not paid to like ‘em. Just bring ‘em back.”

“Fair enough.”  Turmoil tilted his head.  “And I imagine you earned your wages, Lockdown.” He said the word ‘wages’ as though it were an obscenity.

“Should have charged extra, yes,” Lockdown said. “Especially since Megatron would have paid it.”  He  leaned back in his seat, propping a knee on the console. “Megatron thinks he’s quite…valuable.”  Twisting that knife in a little deeper.

Turmoil didn’t flinch, but he did manage a sharp glare.  “I don’t doubt it, with Deadlock’s past.”  Trying to taunt Lockdown with knowledge.

Lockdown was tempted.  But not enough to give in to curiosity.  Still, he could hear innuendo, thick as plaster. “Busy mech, then, with that little prize he brought back.”  Why not give Turmoil something else to sour his energon.

“Prize.”

“Oh, yes,” Lockdown smirked, showing a mouthful of teeth. “Dainty little jet.”

“An airframe.” Turmoil tilted his head, openly surprised.

“Jealous?”

A dark snort. “Of course not.”

A lie, and they both knew it.  Turmoil rallied—he hadn’t, Lockdown knew, climbed to the top of the command chain by being slow on the uptake and counterattack.  “It must just warm your spark, Lockdown, that Deadlock is so…happy.” The word was poison in his vocalizer. 

“I’ll admit it chafes.” Why not admit it? It was no secret. 

A brusque nod, as though Turmoil had scored some victory.  “I’ve found,” Turmoil said, settling back, self-satisfied, “that these things have a way of…working themselves out.” A flare of the optics, and Lockdown found himself smirking, leaning forward.

[***]

Deadlock slumped on the berth, staring helplessly at the lump that was Wing, a stream of curses rolling through his processor, along with Megatron’s words. Yes, he did want more than ownership. But…he had no idea what that meant.  Just that he wanted Wing to want him; to look at him the way he had in Crystal City.

He reached over, snatching at one of the wingstruts, jerking it out straight, unfolding the flight panels by force.  Wing cried out, half unrolling from his tight ball.

“Mine,” Deadlock snarled, palm greedy on the flat silver.

“Yes,” Wing whimpered, stilling his wingpanel with effort, a quiet surrender. 

This was not what Deadlock wanted; anger flared over him, and he scraped his hand harshly over the flat metal, gritting into a grin at the sound, at the rigid shudder running through the jet’s frame. His, even if unwilling. His. 

He flung himself at the jet, mouth tearing at the throat, pinning one unprotesting wrist to the berth. A growl of desire and ownership bubbled in his vocalizer, a twisted lust born of thwarted want boiling over him.  “Mine,” he whispered, again, around the sharp bite, his one hand clinging to the wing, the other cupping the white hip against his. 

“Yes,” Wing said, his voice thick with misery, even as he arched up, autoreleasing his interface hatch.  Complete surrender, as Deadlock bucked down, sinking his spike into the valve, feeling the calipers shiver around him.

It still wasn’t enough. He drove himself into the jet’s body, dentae meeting as they ruptured a small fuel line, spike pounding into the snug, quivering valve like a hammer driving in nails of ownership, possession. It felt like it would never be enough: Wing could not surrender enough, debase himself enough, accept enough.

Deadlock snarled, pushing himself off the jet, wrenching his spike from the valve with a sudden motion that left them both gasping in pain. He drove a fist against the berth, the noise sudden and startling, venting his fury on the inanimate metal. 

Wing lay, flat, wings half-spread, face a rictus of pain and despair, optics focusing dully on Deadlock’s rage.  “Sorry,” he whispered. An apology: a state of being. 

“Shut up.”  The words came out hard as knives, but with blades that cut into his own palms.  Deadlock flung himself on the berth, broad back to the light jet, arms folded bitterly over his chassis.  Lust prickled over his sensornet like some plague.

Wing stilled for a long moment, mastering the shock and pain, one hand gingerly brushing over his bruised valve with a wince, before he closed the cover, gently. The gold optics, their luster tarnished and dull, swiveled to Deadlock, the white spaulders, hunched in the dark. He wanted to hate Deadlock; the mech was the murderer of his City, a liar, deceiver, traitor.  He was everything Wing was taught to avoid, everything wrong with the old Cybertron. 

And yet.

And yet, he huddled in pain and loneliness that was any mech’s pain and loneliness, a real, genuine pain that stripped off all his lies, all his actions, leaving a simple, aching spark, a nobody who didn’t even know who he was, much less what he wanted.

And Wing was nothing, worse than nothing: a collaborator in his City’s destruction.  So in a sense it was nothing: a nothing folding around a nobody, as he slipped his arm around the white chassis, his face pressing into the back of the neck, burying his gold optics against the unyielding metal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been stalling posting this story (lol the file is 32K words), because I realize it comes parlously close to 'rape is love' though that's not my intent. I discovered that this fic is considered (lol like my Bayverse fics apparently) unreadable to some, and I've been wrestling to figure out why, because I've certainly written all sorts of dubious/bizarre consent issues before, and I think that the thing that makes this unpalatable is that it approaches to some readers justifying a trope they find unacceptable. It is, as I keep saying, an id fic, where I stir up the dark corners. 
> 
> So then, what is my intent? I am going more for the idea that a relationship based on anything other than hierarchy and domination is entirely alien to Deadlock. He only knows what the Decepticons do, and respect and consent are...not really issues. So he's fumbling--and failing--with Wing, because he doesn't know any other way. Maybe he'll learn. Maybe Wing will change. Maybe it will be too late for both of them.


	9. Chapter 9

NC-17  
IDW AU  
Deadlock, Megatron, Wing  
sticky, dubcon  
  
  
  


Deadlock stirred in his recharge, white limbs shifting and adjusting under Wing’s embrace, and for a moment he was confused, as though the past and the present had folded and seamed together, and he was back in Crystal City, his defiance a hard, hidden bubble wrapped in the soft warmth of Wing.

He turned his head, optics half-shuttered to dim blue slits, searching the darkness for Wing’s face. In recharge, some of the despairing tension had left it—he looked almost as he had back then. 

Deadlock didn’t do much creative thinking, beyond strategizing.  That he excelled at, to the extent that he had defied Turmoil, again and again. Just…another kind of strategy, he thought. Different battlefield.  First question: what is our objective. 

The optic shutters opened, studying Wing, more obviously, his hand reaching to trace the contours of the jet’s frame.  Wing shivered under the touch, his body pushing into it, EM field flickering wanly to life.  Emboldened, Deadlock leaned closer, his mouth brushing against the sleep-parted lipplates. 

A soft response, a quiet whimper, and the optics began to hum online. Deadlock found he dreaded that—the moment Wing would online enough to be conscious, remember where he was, know who was touching him. 

His hand clamped over the frame, rolling onto his back, hauling Wing over him, his mouth sliding to Wing’s audio. “Take me,” he whispered, his voice too soft to carry emotion. He felt the EM field flash over his, arousal striking Wing like lightning, the jet’s sudden snap to desire. 

“Drift,” Wing said, and Deadlock was too lost in his own want to correct the jet, too afraid of shattering this.  He hiked his hips up, releasing his interface equipment, tempting, inviting. 

Wing, half conscious, snared in drowsy arousal, slid his hands down Deadlock’s frame, pushing off just enough to create clearance between them to sink his spike inside Deadlock. 

Deadlock’s dark thighs wrapped over the hips, locking Wing with him, unwilling to let him escape.  Wing moved above him, within him, in the same, slow, steady, gentle rocking way he had, so different from anything Deadlock had ever known, a motion insistent and demanding, for all its gentleness. Deadlock heard soft moans against him, the hands clinging to his frame, hot bursts of air from an impassioned mouth against his shoulder.

He sent the command, opening the data receptor in his valve’s crown.  He wanted this for this—the soft, reaching pleasure, but he also wanted…the data. Wing’s memories, Wing’s substance. Perhaps that was what was missing, the key to what Deadlock truly wanted. 

Wing cried out, half like a sob, the overload wringing from him. He shuddered, startled, as the valve clamped down over his spike, the contractions controlled, guiding the datafluid into the chamber. It felt different, Deadlock knew, but he was too lost to care, headlong-flung into sea of emotions, memories, color and light and sound and smell of Wing’s data. It was intoxicating, and entirely unlike Megatron’s.  He was aware of his head falling back against the berth, his body writhing from the memory, and the gold optics, surprised, confused, shining down at him.

He didn’t care: he clutched Wing to him, his mind and body embracing the white jet, with a grip that would not break, letting the waves of memory and being crash over him, frothing over them both in a storm of ecstasy.

[***]

“I want him,” Megatron said. It was a half-formed premise, not something that rose to the level of an actual desire.  More like…simply testing Deadlock.

Deadlock went rigid, the word ‘no’ forming, dying, on his lip plates. “….why.”

To goad you, to own you, he thought, letting a small smile curl over his mouth.  “You said he taught you.”

An almost imperceptible release of the broad shoulders. “Fighting.”

“Yes.” Among, apparently, other things.

“All right.”

“All…right?” Megatron’s mouth curled in amusement. “Are you giving me permission?”

“He won’t fight you.”  A blue defiant flare of the optics, chin tipped up.  Pushed, nettled, but not refusing.  The boundaries of Deadlock’s will were fascinating. Intoxicating, almost.

“Won’t he?”  

“He won’t fight me.” Said, flat, like the foundation of a building, heavy and solid. Some memory there, sour and dense.

“Ah, but Deadlock, surely you recall,” a glance, that traveled over the smaller mech, exploring the contours of the new design like a lascivious finger, stirring, he hoped, that sour sludge of memory, “I have ways of getting mechs to fight with me.”

[***]

Wing stepped into the practice chamber, optics level and steady.  Too level, Megatron thought: not even looking around, merely taking in Megatron standing on the far side before seeming to pull inward. 

“I won’t ask,” Megatron began, “if you are enjoying our hospitality.” A gambit, of course.  Pretend generosity.

“Thank you.” The voice was a courteous whisper, and Megatron knew it was thanking him for not asking the question.

“Deadlock told me,” Megatron continued, stepping closer, just enough to enforce the size difference, to make the white helm have to tilt up to meet his gaze, “that you taught him how to fight.”

A wan smile. “In a way, yes.” 

“He’s improved.”

He waited for the bland, polite comment: a compliment, at least, for his recognized lover, the labor of training.  None came. Curious.  No matter.  Megatron stepped one foot back, into the stance that he’d used at the Arena: so long ago that it seemed hardwired.  Impossible to believe he had once been a miner. It was as if his memories ceased—or began—in Clench’s arena. 

No, he could remember back before that. He chose not to.

“Show me.”

A shake of the head, white helm finials bowing. Polite, but refusing. Unlike Deadlock, so very, very unlike Deadlock, who defied, but dared not refuse.

“That was not a request,” Megatron said, swinging out with a broad, obvious punch. 

A hitch of the systems, one arm clenching up. And then releasing.  Refusing to block: the blow struck home, crashing against the side of the jet’s head, sending him tumbling over. 

He lay, refusing to get up, like a doll, like a training drone. 

“Get up.”

A flash of a smile, gold-lit and sad, from the cracked facial plate. Nothing else, nothing more. 

“Up.”

Stillness, broken only by the hiss of a hose knocked loose, a drip of energon splattering pink and blameworthy on the floor.

Megatron felt a flash of irritation. He was used to Deadlock’s pugnacious resistance, outright sullen defiance. This was just…limpness, passivity.  And a key, he thought, to Deadlock’s own frustration. 

He dropped to one knee, close to the jet’s face. “Wing,” he purred, leaning over.  “You will fight me.”

The mouth set itself, lip-plates plush and inviting. Another key to Deadlock, Megatron thought.  What Deadlock must have thought, coming from the gutters, to behold a creature of such obvious affluence?

Obviously, the desire to tear him down, bring him low. 

“You’ll fight me,” he continued, blandly, “because surely you can see that keeping me…entertained serves a purpose.”  He reached a hand, insolent, bold, to tug at the lead edge of one of the wing panels.  Just enough to hint, to hurt.  “And if you don’t, I could make things…so much worse for Deadlock.”  He let his voice dive into a growl, leaving no ambiguity, his optics fixing on the mobile, expressive mouth. So easily readable, the sharp, sudden quiver, and even more, after that, the body, as Wing pushed up sit. 

“Yes,” Wing said, optics downcast, bowed in surrender.  The wing panel shivered between his fingers.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatron gets designs on Wing: Deadlock prepares him as best he can.

Wing was a more than competent fighter, Megatron discovered. No wonder Deadlock had improved.  He was fast, agile, and moved with a grace that Megatron found himself envying. 

He would have enjoyed taking him apart in the Arena.

He would still enjoy taking the mech apart. Just in a different way, now, one that gave him usable pieces yet: Deadlock and Wing himself.

“He’s skilled,” Megatron said, reaching for another gun. It had been a sort of temptation for Deadlock, this assignment. Here, Deadlock, clean enough weapons, and maybe, maybe I’ll trust you enough to let you use on in combat again. He was hardly discounting Turmoil’s account: Deadlock was a bit too headstrong. He presumed too much initiative and that, indeed, needed a strong hand. Stronger than Turmoil had, but not stronger than Megatron himself.

And Deadlock knew it.  He glowered, but kept his defiant optics downcast, at the gun disassembled on the table between them. “He is.” The voice was tight, controlled, almost strangled.

“How often did he win?” The music in Megatron’s voice was genuine, though thinned with disuse. 

Deadlock’s mouth tightened. “Always. He always won.”

A chuckle, as Megatron moved to disassemble a rifle’s handguards.  The movement was surprisingly soothing to him, to the point he wondered why he didn’t do this more often.  Privileges of rank should be relaxing.  This brought back pleasant old memories, when he didn’t feel quite so…walled in by power. 

Deadlock bridled under Megatron’s  laugh, calling him back. 

“And you let him live, after the fall of the city.”

“He always won,” Deadlock repeated, mouth harsh.  As though that were reason enough. And it was, in its way.  Deadlock was nothing if not zealous in the one subject he ever studied.  And Megatron understood that, too—the desire to take a troublesome enemy, study him, learn from him like draining a tank. 

“It’s more than that, Deadlock.” He reached for the rag between them, feeling the blue optics, hard and hostile, across his knuckles.  “Are you lying to me, or lying to yourself?”

“Neither,” Deadlock snapped. He cracked the bolt in his hands open with more force than was necessary.  Whatever he had learned from Wing, it hadn’t been the jet’s quiet calm. 

“Then you won’t mind,” Megatron drawled, his optics moving to study the blue optics, the white helm with the alien lines, “if I take him.”

“Mine.” The word was fast, automatic.

“I’ll return him, Deadlock. In functioning condition even.” The smile grew warm and predatory, spreading like oil.

He sat back, enjoying the war that ravaged over Deadlock’s face. Deadlock’s loyalty to Megatron was a palpable thing, sturdy and strong as steel cable, but like that cable it had burrs and snags. And this was one of them: as he fought against this loyalty and this thing he wanted, coveted.  It made Megatron all the more curious to sample this Wing.

A harsh, tattered vent of air. “All right.”  The words were bitter, jagged, sounding as if they hurt Deadlock’s vocalizer.  Megatron felt a surge of raw, incandescent victory, the way it used to feel, vivid and sharp, uncomplicated with logistics or cost. “But not tonight.”

And Megatron divined Deadlock’s plan in that stiletto-blade resistance.  He nodded, tolerantly. “Seed him with your memories all you wish, Deadlock. Though,” he reached for a bore brush, “I admit to surprise you haven’t done it sooner.”

The hard glower in Deadlock’s optics were almost sweet, hate mixed with loyalty, memory tangled with desire. 

[***]

“Wing.” Deadlock swung into the room, reeking of gun oil, startling the jet where he sat in the corner, lost in some web of thoughts. 

“Deadlock,” Wing said, smoothing his pinions as he rose to his feet, and it struck the Decepticon, suddenly, that Wing might be…bored here. 

Deadlock halted, staring at the white jet, his blue optics rolling over the elegant lines. Even standing up looked like a dance when Wing did it, a symphony of coordination and movement, panel sliding over panel, gyros creating balance. He lunged forward, his mouth battering against Wing’s, his hand clutching around the folded wingpanels. 

Wing shivered against him, knowing what was expected and wanting—and not wanting—to accede.  His mouth parted under Deadlock’s, his gold optics softening the hard blue of Deadlock’s gaze.

Deadlock tore his mouth away, hard enough to bruise metal.  “Tomorrow,” he said, and his optics couldn’t meet Wing’s, “Megatron claims you.” 

Wing shuddered, taking in all the unspoken meanings of the phrase, and Deadlock’s own frustration/anger/helplessness.  The pain in Deadlock’s face tore at him. And who was he, after all, not to offer comfort?  What use might be made of his scrap of a life if not to be a small blanket to cover some small part of the coldness of the world? “I will survive,” he said, hating the thought, but taking an infinitesimal comfort in the way the words soothed some of the heat of Deadlock’s tumult of emotions. 

“I know,” Deadlock murmured, before clamping his mouth tight for a long moment. He dragged the jet toward the berth. “Something I have to show you.” He sounded almost apologetic. 

Wing stumbled after, perplexed. “Deadlock?”

“Lie down.”

Wing knelt on the berth, dropping gracefully to one hip, his optics tilted in real concern. 

“Down,” Deadlock said, his voice growing rough. He shoved a hand at the shoulder nacelle, Wing dropping back against the berth’s cold surface.  A long, tense moment.

Deadlock blurted a command.  “Remember it.”

“What does it do?”  Wing cocked his head, storing the code in his quick-recall. 

Another hesitation, and Deadlock’s hands seemed to twitch, unsure.  The Decepticon snarled, suddenly, in some fight with himself.  “Activate the command.”

Wing executed the file, and felt something seem to…flutter in his lower chassis.  It wasn’t unpleasant, wasn’t pain, or pleasure. Something liminal.

Deadlock pushed himself on top of Wing, one hand beside the jet’s audial flares, the other reaching to unsnap his interface hatch.  Wing hissed but he had become accustomed to this sort of casual use, telling himself that if it brought Deadlock any comfort, it was a small thing to give: the hollowness of his body, the emptiness of his response.

Deadlock sank home, in a gesture that was almost practiced smooth, like a sword form, Wing’s hips cupping to accept him. 

It was a strange, almost passionless coupling, their bodies seeming separate things from their minds, even as Deadlock’s ventilations huffed between them. The Decepticon gave a groan and then a sudden jerk of the hips, as the overload seemed to touch him, distantly.

Wing cried out, startled, optics widening as the charge seemed to activate something deep in his valve, the calipers oscillating with a steady rolling rhythm up the spike and the scalding fluid going…

…a wave of vertigo slammed against him, almost erasing his consciousness for a klik and then frothing around him with scenes, lights, tastes, smells of another time, a place he’d never been. He saw laser fire, felt his feet sink into an alien bog. He felt the dangerous cold and heat of the gutters, their darkness the only stability. He felt filth and desperation and hope twisted into anger. 

He felt Drift. Drift, the kernel of Deadlock, Drift, who still, under that armor, shuddered against him. Drift’s memories, Deadlock’s life.  He whimpered, uncomprehending, the room spinning, heaving, unstable, as though reality could at any moment tear itself apart and reknit to something else entirely.

“Mine,” Deadlock hissed, collapsing his weight against Wing’s, his arms clinging to the jet’s chassis. 

“Your memories.”

A nod, a face buried against his shoulder, rapt in the strange tenderness that took Deadlock, sometimes, after interfacing. “Megatron will do the same.”

“He has, to you.”

“Since the beginning.” Another nod, and the heat of the interfacing seemed to chill inside Wing at the thought: to have someone’s memories, will, forced upon you, inside you. Already he could feel Drift’s memories settling in, the coding slotting next to his own.  And in that, some hint of the Drift he knew, some flashes of memory, crystal bright and warm emotion.  Wing’s arms curled around the white frame, fingers against the shaft of the Great Sword— _his_ Great Sword—as though trying to knit them together.

And so they lay in a comfortless embrace through the darkest cycles of night, afraid to lose even this tenuous contact with the real.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fairly high dubcon. As promised, Wing must go to Megatron.

Wing cycled a vent, standing before Megatron, aware of the measuring gaze, as much as he was aware—still—of the almost gentle touches of Deadlock, before, touching up his damaged paint, buffing him with a soft, melty wax: small, clumsy flashes of concern as much as preparation.  Wing’s armor gleamed, buffed to a silky polish, and underneath, his systems had been scrubbed and oiled.  He hadn’t been this clean since Crystal City, his white almost luminescent against the gloom that seemed to fill this place.

“I’ve been led to believe,” Megatron said, finally, sitting back in his chair, his optics lidding, serpentine; his tone amused, as if he refused to truly be led anywhere, “that flyers need to fly.”

Wing’s mouth twitched: How much had Deadlock told him? Had Deadlock spoken of Wing’s breaking the laws of the City, slipping out to taste the skies? “It is…helpful.” 

“Ah.” Megatron grinned at the hesitation.  “Perhaps, then, tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”  His own voice, sounding alien and numb. So much between now and then.  So much would change.  Wing felt his tank seem to retract, chilled.  It seemed such a small span of time: how many nights in Crystal City, blessed sameness? And here? In cycles, so much would change.

“Perhaps.” A pull on one cheek, almost a wink. “If you entertain.” 

Wing had no response to that.  His experience had given him nothing to prepare for this.  But…what choice did he have, really? He had no future. He was forbidden to take his own life.  The best he could do was to cling to some frangible sliver of use: if he could life any of Deadlock’s darkness. Or perhaps even just the effort, he thought—succeed or fail, even just trying, might do something.

Might do nothing.

He shook his head, as though the thought were a swarm of gnats. 

Megatron pushed up, almost rapt at the struggle that was written in large, elegant calligraphy on every line of Wing’s frame. He stood, approaching, letting Wing feel the size of him, the mass, how easily he moved.  It was an intimidating walk Megatron had learned in the Arena, one that had served him far better than the servile steps of a miner. 

Wing, for his part, did not quail back, though his EM field rippled away, like nervous birds in flight. He tilted his head up, ready—he hoped—to face what was to come.

“Hm.” A large hand cupping the edge of his audial flare, thumb tracing the upper line. “Perhaps I won’t make you fight me, this time.”  A flash of a smile that was…almost attractive. Might have been, Wing thought, at one time, ages ago.  And if Drift were there, under Deadlock, little flashes of light, coruscating under the darkness accreted by survival, struggle…who was Megatron, under the weight of all of this? 

Wing couldn’t formulate a reply, and after a moment, Megatron made it unnecessary, bending down to cover his mouth.  The kiss was…not as unpleasant as Wing had feared: the lip plates hard and bruising, as though they’d forgotten gentleness entirely, but he could taste, sweet and tangy, real desire in the glossa that probed against his, an earnest, honest curiosity.

“Wings,” Megatron muttered, pulling away, while Wing’s mouth still hung, half-rapt in the kiss. “Show them.”

Wing nodded, sending the commands to spread his wing panels.  Deadlock had taken care of these, as well, oiling the joints, stroking a cleansing coat over the flight sensors. 

A strange grunt, and one hand closed over the top edge of one wing, possessive.  “Vosians,” Megatron said, his voice barely audible, scratchy and gruff, “have fixed flight panels.”

A finger stroked the seam between flightpanels, almost knowingly, the touch telling Wing something: Megatron had been with flyers before, possibly Vosians.  He didn’t know if this comforted him or not. Knowing how to touch a wing also meant knowing how to hurt, and that fine line between.

“Turn.” 

Wing faltered, one wing flicking down before restraightening, and he turned, silent, obedient.  He could fight, but there was no cause worth fighting for.

A long hiss of air, pneumatic, releasing, and Wing felt two hands glide over his spread wings, tracing their lines, fingertips sliding along his magnetic navigation nodes. “Do you,” Wing heard his own voice, soft as powder, “envy flight?” 

“Envy?” A hint of danger in the voice. “I envy nothing. But.” And the hands slid down his flight panels again, before curling around the jet’s waist, “I appreciate.” He pulled back, Wing’s backframe pressing against the massive block of his chassis.  Wing could feel the EM field, a hard, tuned buzz against his flight sensors, and the strange texture of metal battered and nicked in a hundred thousand places.  He found his own hands wrapping over the large ones around his waist, for balance, as the larger mech stood, hauling Wing off his footplates.  Megatron’s engines revved, the vibration pulling a surprised squeak from Wing’s vocalizer, his own EM field tuning itself with the larger mech’s, almost against his volition.

A guttural laugh against his spread wings, one hand creeping between Wing’s thighs. Wing whimpered, the hand rasping over his interface hatch, squeezing over the projecting arch. 

“I could kill you,” Megatron whispered, and the words were some dark, red-black oil between them, intoxicating and slippery.

“I know,” Wing replied, optics dimming, almost…almost hoping. It would be a relief, a release better than he dared hope for. 

He knew he wouldn’t be that fortunate.

A mouth, hot and hard, on his helm, nipping, then biting at his flare. Wing clung to the hands wrapped around him, fingers like small black claws in the interstices of the larger hands.

Megatron purred, swinging Wing’s mass as though he were weightless.  He’d been rebuilt, countless times, but always, always he had kept his miner’s strength, a strength that moved Wing’s frame in an easy arc, over to the berth.  If there had been any doubt as to the intentions, they had to evaporate here, as Wing let himself be dropped onto the berth, rolling from the larger mech’s grasp to lay on his back, wings tucking demurely behind his back.

A smile that wasn’t quite a smirk from Megatron, as he dropped one knee—heavily—onto the berth next to the jet. His optics rode over Wing’s chassis, like a hot line of desire, the same dark want that Wing saw in Deadlock’s optics, a possessive, owning hunger.

A rough hand snapped open Wing’s interface hatch, the jet parting his thighs obediently.  It would happen, if he wanted or not: this way, maybe it would be done sooner.

Megatron’s other hand hit the berth beside Wing’s shoulder, supporting his weight, as he released his own equipment.  He lingered over Wing, optics tracing a slow line down the chassis, guiding his spike to the mouth of the valve.  Megatron gave a sighing growl as he sank his spike into the valve, slowing as he felt the calipers struggle to expand around him. 

It…hurt. But Wing had expected it to, opening himself to the pain, welcoming the hurt, arching, hissing, as the spike pushed, inexorable, into him.

“Small,” Megatron murmured. “Like Deadlock.”

“Yes,” Wing said. What else was there to say? He was linked, in so many ways, to Deadlock.

Megatron pushed forward, trying, Wing realized, to slow his movement:  a small mercy that tore at him more than any brutality might have.  He hooked his hand under Wing’s left knee, lifting the leg up, pulling the thighs apart.  The red flashing on Wing’s knee stabilizer rose over Megatron’s shoulder as he covered Wing, the weight of his pelvic span against Wing’s, pushing him into the berth. 

The spike seated itself in the valve, the equipment rims meeting as a wince rippled over Wing’s face.  Megatron gave a soft chuckle, resting, quiescent, against Wing, just savoring the ownership, the surrender. The valve had the same velvety feel of Deadlock, and he made the connection—Deadlock had been rebuilt—almost entirely—in that hidden city. And Megatron had the only survivor.  His smile grew even more possessive, realizing the value of what lay before him.

Wing shivered, and Megatron felt the subtle shift, the soft change at the top of the valve.  He leaned over, nipping the red stabilizer near his shoulder.  Drift had taken him, seeded him, no doubt.  No matter. 

He began shifting against the small jet, his spike sliding against the straining calipers, the lining taut and stretched. Wing’s hands clutched at the berth, as though clinging for comfort and finding none. The shimmering dance of pain, fighting with a rising, barely-wanted desire. 

Exquisite.  Megatron was used to Deadlock’s defiant submission, the sycophantic willingness of others.  But this…this was different—beautiful uncertainty, Wing riding on the sharp edge of want and pain, desire and distance.  It raced like wildfire over Megatron’s systems, setting his sensor net afire—the magnetic, irresistible appeal of the new.

“Think,” Megatron murmured, his words broken up by the thrusts against the smaller jet—hard in, withdrawing slowly—“of the sky.” It wasn’t a kindness, but something to throw a blade of wistfulness into Wing’s memory. 

Wing cried out, hands clutching at the rib struts above him with a warrior’s strength, the submission writhing to something else, something even more intoxicating, that swirled around the growing overload. 

Megatron felt his spike against the valve, the strange, velvety lick of the cilial lining, the innate resistance of the calipers riding over his nodes, the slick lubricant heated by his friction.  And the jet’s frame, twitching and shivering, ensnared in desire.

The overload swept over him, one of the few things Megatron still let master him, still let take him over completely. But even then, not without a fight, not without resistance. So the overload struck like  a conqueror, the huge frame juddering as the charge burst over it, current racing across the motor servos, the sensory pickups, as the datafluid spilled against the valve. 

Even more than any mere physical desire: the way Wing trembled, mouth pulling into a shape of something overwhelmed, as Megatron’s memories battered through his firewalls, planting themselves in his core. Megatron dropped down onto his elbows, drinking in the jet’s agonized ecstasy, covering the shivering, weak jet entirely, his large frame blotting any other detail in the room. Not to comfort the process, but to make himself, inside and out, the jet’s entire world.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wing returns after having been given to Megatron. As I hit 40K words on the file this morning it occurred to me I haven't actually uh posted any in a while.

 

Memories. Not his, not Deadlock’s, but Wing could already hear the lines beginning to blur. Flashes of a miner.  Darkness, sparks of light, darkness, the roar of a thousand voices raised in triumph.  Suffering. Anger. 

The anger.

It stunned him, stifled him.  And he knew that it was this anger that sustained Megatron, more than the powerful engines. It was a volatile fuel, but one that had burned inside the warlord for ages.

And now the memory of it burned across Wing’s cortex as well.

It was different than Deadlock’s, like a different flavor or texture.  Deadlock’s was the anger borne of despair, Megatron’s of defiance.  Deadlock wanted justice: Megatron wanted revenge. 

Wing ghosted down the corridor, an orb of memories, a swirling vessel of memories not his own, alien emotions eddying in his steps. He just wanted to get back to Deadlock’s quarters, to curl in a tight ball, and hopefully let this swirling cloudy sediment settle. Maybe then he’d find himself again.

He just wanted to stop moving. It seemed everything was moving, pulling him inexorably forward into a future he didn’t want to face. 

“Well, now.” The drawl dripped insinuation like heavy amber oil down the walls.  “Alone, here, this time of recharge cycle.”  The red optics floated behind Wing’s shoulder, to the corridor leading to Megatron’s quarters, and then back to the small jet, obvious, thick with insolence.

Wing moved to step past Lockdown. “I am returning to my quarters,” he said, quietly.

“Your quarters,” Lockdown goaded. “Your other master’s, you mean.”

Wing met the gaze, his gold optics shimmering. “Yes.  It is like that.”  No sense denying, and not like Wing had anything to claim any sort of pride about. He knew his place.  Like it or not were beyond his reach.  It simply…was. 

Lockdown smirked. “How the mighty have fallen, eh?”

“I was never ‘mighty’,” Wing said.  He felt the emptiness of his Sword’s channel before, but never quite as strongly as now.  It seemed to burn with lack. 

“Still,” Lockdown said, stepping forward, one hand reaching, bold and intruding, for a shoulder-nacelle, “for all your City’s talk of freedom. And look at you.  Deadlock’s toy.  And,” another significant glance up-corridor, “not even that.” 

Something boiled in Wing’s systems. He could nearly feel glass crack, in his chassis, as if some invisible crucible had burst. Something scorching, writhing, almost sentient, as though a serpent of fire slithered through Wing’s circuitry.  He saw hands—his hands—black and small, shove against the larger mech’s chassis; a voice—his voice—snarling a wordless threat. 

A clang of metal—Lockdown’s backframe hitting the bulkhead.  Wing stepped back, abruptly, coming to himself, realizing one fist had balled and was swung back, ready to strike.  “Back off,” he heard himself snarl, and he directed half of that to himself, gold optics unsure, shaken, as he whirled on his heel and, if he were honest with himself…fled.

[***]

Deadlock sat up, hearing the first gears turning to release the door. He hadn’t been able to recharge, or concentrate: his thoughts tortured beyond anything physical Megatron could actually do to him, imagining Megatron—as he knew him—with Wing.

Several times, during the night, he’d found himself standing in the threshold of his own room, fists hard knots, swords almost singing in their scabbards, ready to storm down and stop it.  Other times, he’d flung himself on his berth, snarling at his own weakness. What did he care, anyway?  The fact it even bothered him was weakness, vulnerability. Megatron was doing him a favor, he argued with the hard green knot of pain in his throat.  Megatron was helping him get stronger. Tougher.  He’d grown weak in Crystal City, a victim of some disease. And Megatron was providing the cure.

It was hardly Megatron’s fault the medicine tasted bitter.

He was on his feet by the time the door cycled open. “Wing,” he said, rocking his weight on his footplates, still torn in his own mind.

Wing stopped in the threshold, his gold optics haunted. “Deadlock,” he said, his voice distant, as though through some wall.  He seemed, Deadlock thought, uncertain too, and it rattled Deadlock more than he imagined. No matter what, he’d always thought Wing was steadfast, solid.

Wing blinked, the gold optics turning almost molten, liquid, after the blink, and Wing strode forward, suddenly, hands coming up to Deadlock’s shoulders, bearing him down to the berth.  Deadlock let his knees bend, taking the jet’s weight, hands coming up, first to fend, then to cling to, as Wing covered him, burying his face between Deadlock’s spaulder and his cheek armor.

“Wing,” he said, and the word hung between them.  He stopped himself, unsure how to continue. Apologize?  Wing shook his head, fingers digging into Deadlock’s frame, sharp little points of need. 

“It was,” Wing whispered, after a long moment, “like that. For you. From the beginning.” 

Deadlock didn’t trust himself to do more than nod against the armor.

“Deadlock,” Wing said, pulling up, just enough that the gold optics could peer into his blue, “How do you know who you are?”

The question hit Deadlock like a blow, and he could feel the memories seething within him, against him.  “I…don’t know.”  All he did know was that the confusion and pain in Wing’s face, squirming and writhing through the jet’s EM field, set something almost frantic alight within him.

Wing gave a shuddering sigh that edged into a whimper. “Maybe it’s better this way. I…don’t want to be me.”

Deadlock’s arms tightened around the jet’s chassis, trying to hold the mech together by the confines of his armor, letting the action stand in as his unasked for response, as the last hours of night stretched thin wings over them both.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatron complicates issues.

Deadlock onlined, abruptly, with the uncanny tightness he remembered too well from before, a sense of danger, looming near. His sensors tripped online, searching for the cause of his alarm.

Wing. Wing had fallen into recharge, his weight a comfortable pressure on Deadlock’s frame. And Deadlock had allowed himself to take some comfort in the weight, even in the trembling of the frame, that Wing had come to him for comfort, had found some solace even in Deadlock’s clumsy embrace.

And that weight was gone, that soft EM field no longer mingled with his.  It felt like an absence.

He rolled over, blue optics scanning the berth, to find Wing’s back, the wing panels quivering and taut, the jet curled into a tight ball.  It reminded him—agonizingly—of the gutters, of how he’d slept, collapsed, folded to make himself as small as possible, as if he could fold himself tight enough to escape the misery, create a world unto himself.

It never worked.  The world, and its ugly reality, was always just outside his skin.

Deadlock reached over, one hand stilling a trembling wing.  Wing tensed beneath his touch, then softened as Deadlock rolled closer, sliding one thigh over the upraised hip, his hand wrapping around the chassis.  Wing unfolded, enough to take the hand in his, drawing it against his chassis, linking his fingers through Deadlock’s.  Deadlock gave a sigh, moving nearer, pressing his chassis against the backplates, the sensitive hollowed channel where the Great Sword once lay.

“How…touching.” 

Megatron’s voice, gravelly and amused, sliding through the darkness.

Deadlock bolted up, one arm flung protectively between Megatron and Wing, optics blazing, alarmed.  Megatron sat, in a chair at the edge of the berth, one foot propped on the flat, cool surface, his optics dim as a miner’s, barely illuminating the curves of a smile.  It hadn’t been Wing’s absence that had wakened Deadlock—it had been this presence.

Wing scrambled backwards, the red stabilizers on his knees like fast flags of surrender. 

“What are you doing here?”  Deadlock’s optics may have been blue, but  the narrowed glare was absolutely Decepticon.

“Observing,” Megatron said, mildly. 

Deadlock snarled.

“Deadlock,” Megatron chided, sitting forward, one hand reaching to rest on the berth’s surface, as if claiming it. 

“Not here,” Deadlock hissed. 

“Why not?”  The smile bloomed.  “Surely, by now, you’ve gotten over your precious shyness.” 

Deadlock’s mouth quirked to a snarl, one that, Megatron thought, simply called for conquest, begged—as much as Deadlock begged—to be covered in a kiss. 

He obliged, of course, mouth hard and demanding, scraping at the scowling lip plates.  Deadlock  snarled, one hand striking flat on Megatron’s chestplate.  Megatron drove forward, shoving Deadlock back, using his momentum and mass to flatten the smaller mech against the berth, the head unable to turn or pull away as he sliced his glossa like a blade through the mouthplates. It didn’t stop Deadlock from fighting back.  Megatron would have been…ineffably disappointed if it had.

He caught a movement from the corner of one optic, with a gladiator’s ancient awareness, moving just in time to catch Wing’s striking wrist with one hand. And the fight in the jet’s optics was more than alluring—an ember he’d happily fan to a blaze.  Megatron ran a possessive, claiming hand down Deadlock’s side, the dark thighs.  So much familiar, so much new, an absolutely intriguing combination.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said, standing, optics glinting with dark amusement, throwing Wing by his caught hand over Deadlock’s body. “It seems you have things to consider.”

[***]

Deadlock glowered, arms folded over his chassis. The gesture was so familiar that for a moment—a long moment—history seemed to collapse itself and then resolve around the different armor, the blue optics.  “I’m wasted here.”

“Is that your decision to make?”

“Yes.”  The optics narrowed to a hard glare.  “We need to win the war, Megatron.”  He jutted his chin in challenge, as if saying that if Megatron needed reminding of that then Deadlock was merely doing his duty.

“You think you deserve a command. After what you’ve done.”

“I’ve won for you,” Deadlock countered. “I got out from under a commander who was barely ‘commanding’.”

“There are other ways you could have handled that.”

“My way. Direct.”

“Disruptive. You locked down an entire cruiser.”

Deadlock shrugged.  “Did what was necessary. What I always do.”

An electric moment between them; Megatron had to fight the urge to take Deadlock right there. This fire was what had made the mech stand out in the first place, this sullen insistence, this unrepentant stubbornness.

Megatron laughed. “All right.”

The optic shutters flared, surprised. Ahhh, Deadlock.  There are ways of attack a bit more subtle than yours.  Two simple words and Megatron had dug in under the other mech’s plating far deeper than by matching defiances. 

“I’ll give you a chance to prove yourself,” he added, mouth curling in a grin, knowing Deadlock would understand that it was also a chance to fail.

“All I want,” Deadlock said.  “If I’m not good enough, then I’m not.”

And the fact was: Deadlock spoke absolute truth.  He would accept if someone was better than he was.  Not on faith: Deadlock took nothing on faith. But proven in his place, he was manageable enough.  Either way, Megatron won: gain a field commander with absolute loyalty, or get a chastened, but gifted, subaltern. 

“And have you thought of your little Wing?”

“What about him?”  Deadlock’s voice was guarded, giving nothing away other than the fact that he was giving nothing away.

“Do you take him with you? Or leave him here?”

“With me. Not leaving him here.” His hands curled over his scabbards.

“Deadlock. Do you think I’d hold him hostage?”  Of course he would. He wasn’t above keeping that rein over Deadlock, after all.

“He stays with me. He fights with me.”

“You’d make him fight. He could get hurt, Deadlock.”

“He won’t.”  The same flat denial. It would have been almost comical from anyone else, but Megatron had seen, over megacycles, what that hardened, stubborn will could do. 

“He won’t fight for our cause.”

“He’ll fight for me.” Slightly less confidence in the voice, more bluster.

“Will he?”

Deadlock glowered.

“I wonder,” Megatron mused, “If this Wing has weakened you.”

A moment, Deadlock flinching as if struck, then the mouth tightened.  “Prove it to you.” 

“You’ll have your chance.”

[***]

Deadlock was in a good mood—for him. Wing could feel it almost fluttering off the other mech’s EM field the moment he entered their quarters.

Their quarters. Strange how Wing had begun to think of them that way abruptly—he and Deadlock bonded, bound, sharing the dark misery of this place. The question lit his gold optics as Deadlock came over, hauling Wing to his feet in an almost joyous embrace.

Wing stood, stunned by the sudden gesture.  “Deadlock…?”

“We leave. Tomorrow.”

“Leave.”  Wing’s hands had come up, in response to the embrace, catching on the backs of Deadlock’s elbows. 

“My own command.  Back to the war.” Deadlock’s excitement was palpable, sheeting off him like rain.  He swung Wing around, off his feet, depositing him on the berth, his mouth catching the jet’s in a quick, hard kiss.  “Doing something,” he said, breaking the kiss, dropping to one knee on the berth beside Wing. 

“Does the war mean that much to you?”

“Everything,” Deadlock said. “Everything to me.”  He reached over, stroking one hand down Wing’s thigh. 

Wing shivered, waiting for the inevitable escalation, waiting for Deadlock to roll on top of him, take him, push into his body, batter against his will.

Deadlock didn’t, simply continuing the long, sweeping caresses, fingertips unexpectedly gentle over Wing’s armor, down the thighs, the greaves, skirling around the ankles, up the long line of the knee stabilizer.  Something like a smile hunted the edges of Deadlock’s mouth, and Wing felt himself relaxing, almost in spite of himself, under the gentle ministrations.  “You’re looking forward to it,” he said, drowsily.

A wry, quiet laugh. “Only thing I’ve ever been good at, Wing.”

“I disagree.”

The laugh faded. “Yes. You’re better.”  The hands stilled on Wing’s frame for a klik, before beginning, moving up to one arm.  Wing tensed, inwardly, almost waiting for the tenderness to turn to pain.

It didn’t—the strong, scarred fingers stroked into the seams of his armor, flirting with the underlying cables, dipping into each finger joint.  Light, delicate touches.  Deadlock’s own optics lidded slowly, as though soothed by the act of touching.  There was a defiant edge to it, somehow, as though Deadlock were violating some rule in being gentle. 

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Wing said, finally. 

“I know.”  And now, Deadlock rolled forward, finding Wing’s mouth for a moment with his own, biting at the lipplates. His desire flared like an aura around him, and Wing felt himself brace, but instead of what he expected, Deadlock lifted his head, blue optics boring into Wing’s gold, before he slithered backwards, suddenly, their armored surfaces sliding over each other as Deadlock pushed back, parting Wing’s thighs. 

Wing gasped, feeling the heat of the mouth on his interface hatch, hands curling over the thighs.  “Deadlock!”

“Shhhhh,” Deadlock murmured, the fricative hissing over the metal like soft static. He flicked open the hatch, optics lidding as he lowered his mouth to the valve cover. A sharp shock as his glossa sparked current over the valve cover, and despite himself, Wing felt his valve cycle on.  It was the agonizing crux of their relationship—wanting and resisting, connection and distance. His valve cover clicked aside, Deadlock’s glossa pressing the advantage, flicking into the valve.  Wing’s hands clutched on the berth’s flat surface—Deadlock reached over, linking his hands, so that the two of them gripped tightly, as he rolled his glossa around the valve’s rim, spiraling into the lining, pushing mercilessly, chasing Wing’s desires, growling softly at the sudden taut thrum of the thigh servos, his fingers squeezing around Wing’s as the overload—fast and hard like a collision—rushed at Wing’s sensornet. 

Wing keened—a scream, really, that raked the raw edge between ecstasy and pain, arching up, his valve clutching, spasming around nothing. And Wing knew that it was an apology, or an attempt at one, a try to bring something selfless and pleasurable.

Deadlock waited until he sagged back down, pouncing up the body, kissing Wing with his lubricant-wet mouth.  His arousal was nearly palpable but he held back, a restraint that Wing wouldn’t have credited him with before. 

Deadlock broke the kiss, his mouth close to Wing’s, optics coruscating and blue.  He spoke, as if pouring his words into Wing’s mouth.  “Learned that in the gutters.” A pause, and Wing could feel the tension build, crest.  Deadlock settled himself on Wing’s frame, almost as if seeking comfort. “Sold…everything down there.” A flare of some old hurt in the optics, expecting some withdrawal from Wing as Wing got the image—Drift—as he had been then, bent on his knees, or sprawled out, someone making a mockery of what should be sacred and trust.  No wonder, he thought. No wonder Deadlock was so…tangled.  Pleasure to him was confounded with humiliation; desire with disgust.  He had been a thing, and that was all he knew—interfacing as using, as a thing being taken by another thing.  An awful paradox: Deadlock had become what he despised, determined to be the victimizer and no longer a victim, trying desperately to tell himself that it was healing, purging a weakness. “Not Drift,” Deadlock whispered. “Never going back to that.”

“No,” Wing whispered, their voices mingling, the last ebb of pleasure through his frame echoing bittersweet and somehow…beautiful.


	14. Chapter 14

Wing  followed Deadlock to the hangar.  What choice did he have? He wasn’t allowed to forget—not for long—his status as possession. He stood by as Deadlock bustled and glowered his way through the lading of the ship, coming by periodically to steal a kiss, or run an owner’s hand down Wing’s hip. Remarking the boundaries, while plucking comfort for himself from Wing’s lip plates.  Wing could have refused, could have turned away, but he found himself—pathetically, almost inexplicably—turning into the kisses, sliding under the touch.  When you have nothing, when you are nothing, that thing that gives you contours, gives you shape, becomes your everything.

“Have to watch them,” Deadlock murmured, mouth soft on Wing’s.  “Or they’ll short us.”

“Short us on supplies?  Your fellow Decepticons?”  Dull curiosity. 

Deadlock smirked, stepping back. “Black market.  They’re like Lockdown. They don’t believe.”

And Deadlock did, with a zealot’s unmalleable faith.  Deadlock believed in the Decepticon cause, believed in their methods.  He held himself superior to the others, on faith, on ability.

And Megatron did, too, apparently, sweeping down after the last grav-pallet trundled off under Deadlock’s harsh gaze.  The leader knew timing, Wing thought, knew the dramatic moment as well as he knew the pitch and timbre of voice. It had been his strength on Cybertron, in the early days of the war, one which he deployed with consummate skill. 

They were fools back then, who wrote Megatron off as ignorant.  And the few who still lived were likely regretting their folly.

“Deadlock. Wing.” Megatron included Wing in the gracious nod.  Wing held  his ground, feeling his own core temp spike.  Deadlock seemed to sense it, brushing his EM field with a hand, soothing him. 

“Megatron.”  Deadlock shifted, stepping between them,  a gesture of protection that almost touched Wing until he remembered Deadlock was merely guarding his possession.

Megatron’s smile was satin smooth. “I came to wish you luck, but now, I remember.  You don’t believe in luck, do you, Deadlock.” A sort of familiar fondness crept into the last words, but not, Wing thought, enough to sheathe the blade in the words.

“I won’t let you down.”  Deadlock tilted his head up, chin jutting and defiant, hands closing over the pistols at his hips. 

“See that you don’t.”  The same sort of half-teasing, half-menace in the voice. This was, apparently, how Decepticons worked and Wing could see the proud, determined tension in Deadlock’s frame, responding to this as he had never responded to Wing’s kinder words.

“And you,” Megatron turned, his shadow falling more fully over the white jet, shadowing his gold optics.  “War is not safe.”

“Neither is this place,” Wing said, softly, his voice holding none of Deadlock’s defiance.

Megatron’s easy laugh, acknowledging. “Different kinds.”  The head revolved to Deadlock. “Don’t you trust me to keep him safe for you?”

A war on Deadlock’s face: loyalty and jealousy colliding. 

“I am Deadlock’s,” Wing said, simply, quietly, inserting himself like a blade of light.  “I go with him.”  He saw the flare of the blue optics, gratified, relieved, and even though it ached inside, Wing knew he had said the truth. He was a possession, nothing more. He accepted that as more than he deserved.

“He comes with me,” Deadlock echoed, with finality.

Megatron smiled, somehow as though he’d won something, even while shrugging in mock-surrender. He retrieved a data cylinder from his storage, holding it out with a sort of grandiloquent gesture. “Your mission. Only the one, then you return and we re-evaluate your position.” 

Deadlock’s hand closed over the cylinder, hard and confident.  With one last amused glance, Megatron nodded, turning to stride back up the loading ramp.

“I will do this,” Deadlock said at the retreating backstruts of Megatron, his voice lambent and earnest. “I will.”  And Wing knew it was more than a promise, more than a pledge.  He felt a sharp ache: how magnificent Deadlock would be if only he could unfetter himself from this blind loyalty, this pursuit of violence.

And then Wing shuddered, as Megatron’s path led him past the hard red gaze of Lockdown, grinning a predator’s grin.

[***]

Deadlock purred against Wing’s backstruts, arms wrapping around the white armored waist.  His EM field crackled against Wing’s—happy and aroused.  He’d spent the last cycles poring over maps, tactics boards, all the accoutrements of strategy. Wing had sat by, quietly, watching Deadlock marking maps, frowning at reports, and then, finally, grinning at a series of dots he made, moving swiftly to send out deployment orders, his voice a crisp, confident bark. 

And now, he wrapped himself around Wing, as though enveloping him in the reek of war and tactics.  “Set,” Deadlock said, nuzzling the sensorspire behind Wing’s neck.  “Everything’s as ready as it can be.”  Wing could feel taut excitement thrum against his folded wingpanels, as he moved to brush his fingertips over one of Deadlock’s hands, feeling himself cold and numb, as though his spark had been replaced with ice.

“You will win?” he asked, his voice hollow, merely making words because they were expected, fighting a strange languorous envy that Deadlock was happy and he was not the root. 

A chuff of air against his neck, still warm with affection. “Never count on victory, Wing.  Best way to lose.”  One hand slipped down the silverbright thigh, palm gliding flat on the beveled edge.  Not pushing, yet, simply touching, caressing.  But Wing could feel the slow rise of heat against his back, desire licking at his EM field. 

“I know,” Wing whispered, and suddenly, the desert of his planet stretched between them, arid and barren.

Deadlock stiffened. “Wasn’t what I meant.”

“Accurate, nonetheless.” No challenge in Wing’s tone; simple fact. He curled into himself, fingers knotting together. 

“Wing,” Deadlock said, his voice, roughened from megacycles of battle, did this sort of plaintive softness poorly, clumsily. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Wing murmured. “You won. That’s all that matters, right?”  His optics shuttered, curling tighter around a sudden pain in his chassis, an ache of regret, freshly blooded.

The hand on his thigh balled, fingertips scraping over the metal, rigid with emotions Deadlock likely couldn’t even name. And suddenly, Deadlock was gone, and the warmth on his back chilled and empty, and by the time Wing had turned around, Deadlock had flung himself to the ground, on the far side of the mapboard, his face set in a scowl that promised violence to any interruption. 

“Deadlock?” Wing risked the name.

A growl met the sound in midair, snaring it. “Go,” Deadlock snarled.

“Go?”

“Go.  To our quarters. My quarters.”  The correction was a lash, meant to break skin.   But Wing knew better than to question: he dropped off the perch, trying not to feel like he was fleeing. 

[***]

Deadlock let the silence and the darkness wrap around him, like a hot cocoon around his rejection.  He could feel, as though he were jacked into the ship itself and could sense along its interior, Wing’s presence, like a thrum through the lines.  Wing would be, he figured, huddled on the berth, wrapped in a knot much like the one Deadlock had curled himself into. The map board loomed above him, all the science and technology of war, and all he knew, and he turned, curling against it for feeble comfort.

It had always been enough, before.  The war had consumed him, filled his emptiness, given him cause and meaning and purpose.  The war had been his everything, his loyalty a tungsten bond.  But now, on the brink of achieving, of proving himself to Megatron once again, of gaining his own command, making larger strides toward the ultimate end of the war, and all he could think of was Wing.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deadlock goes into combat

Wing watched Deadlock from the command ship’s console.  Deadlock had woken him before he left, making perhaps too big a show of prepping his guns, stowing extra cartridges in his storage, magna-clamping magazines to his thighs, his shins.  “Anything happens to me,” Deadlock had said, keeping his optics from Wing, as though allergic to the sight of him, “Contact Megatron.”

“So I am his, then,” Wing had said, folding his legs under him.

A javelin of a look.  “If I die, better him than anyone else. He knows your value.”

Value, Wing had thought, sadly. I have none.  I am a thing, passed hand to hand. A vessel to defile, a link of weakness. But he’d merely nodded.  What right had he to argue?

And Deadlock had headed off, abruptly, pausing one last time by the door of his quarters, as though waiting for some well-wish or offer to follow.

Words had failed Wing, then, and the moment snapped something between them.

And now, Wing could only watch him on the screen, leading the charge, as a mech who scorned danger.

And Deadlock was…magnificent, flaming with confidence, the defiance that seemed his lifeblood finding a purpose and aim.  He fought as though born to it, firing rounds with a frighteningly casual accuracy, not pausing to see if they hit home, but moving on to the next shot, and on.  He was…unleashed. That was the only word Wing could think of to describe Deadlock—as though all the walls had fallen away, and Deadlock blazed, unfettered.

Wing wondered if this was what Deadlock thought freedom felt like. 

And then, something Wing could see, from the aerial perspective of the feed—a tunnel, boiling up behind Deadlock, like some abscess building to burst.  And Wing remembered, abruptly, Lockdown’s malignant smile, there on the hangar floor, and the two seemed to click together into something evil.

And he didn’t think, he couldn’t think, but dashed out of the command center, feet pounding a desperate cadence on the gridded decking as he raced for the ramp, folding himself into his flight mode as he crossed the threshold, nacelles firing on in twin streaks of blue power, and the only thought he could form was that he hoped he wasn’t too late.

[***]

Deadlock grunted, another round slamming into his leg.  Any lower and it would have driven him to his knees. As it was, it forced him back a step, fouling his aim.  Fraggin’ stupid trap, and he was angry that he’d gotten trapped, shoved into this box canyon while the Autobots—an entire squad of them, bristling with weapons—bottlenecked him, filling the entire canyon with the scream of weapons fire, the burst of energy on stone, the shower of small chips of rock. He ducked behind a rock, hands still swift and certain as he reloaded his guns, ignoring the screaming protest of his servos, the slickness of energon spilling on his limbs.

The pain was easy to ignore, the alarms simply shunted to one side.  Harder to ignore was the idea that he was losing. 

No. He didn’t lose. He wouldn’t. 

Or if he did, he’d take as many of them down with him as he could. 

He moved to rise, one leg complaining, guttering sparks as he pushed against it, guns already swinging over the stone’s lip, aiming for targets. He was outgunned, outmassed, and running low on ammunition: all that meant was he had to choose his shots.

A whine split the air, cutting through the crescendo of rifle fire, and suddenly a flash of white and red, a blaze of blue. An impact, hard on his chassis and for a klik Deadlock tried to fight back, hammering a fist against armor, until he realized he had left the ground, his feet cutting the cold air of the sky.

And a familiar thrum against him: Wing’s engines, screaming with the strain of his weight, as the jet clutched him against his chassis, bearing him away from the battle.

For a brief instant, a flare of fury, that he was being torn from combat, before it faded into a strange gratitude that swept him off the ledge of awareness.

[***]

“Here,” a soft voice, and a gentle touch on the back of Deadlock’s helm. “Drink.” 

Deadlock felt his optic shutters blink, the lenses slowly irising to focus on the gold optics, near his own, the pinkish cube of energon.  Wing.  He tried to speak, but his undercharged vocalizer just gave a staticky croak, instead.

A hint of a smile. “Don’t speak. Just…open your mouth.”

 Deadlock felt the pressure of a cube’s rim on his mouth plates, patient and waiting. He opened his mouth, the small sip of energon Wing poured in effervescing across his glossa.  He made a sound, half a sigh, savoring the tingling warmth as it spread through his parched systems. 

“More?”

He gave a small nod, and Wing tipped in another careful mouthful.  He took a moment to route some power to his vocalizer. “What happened?”

Wing laid the cube aside. “You won. The battle, that is.” 

“Won.” Deadlock frowned, struggling up onto one elbow to look down at his body—one thigh was missing its armor, the other bore signs of heat rippling. His chassis was pocked with rounds, armor dinged and dented.

“I had your orders,” Wing said, quietly, ducking his head, turning to take a rag in his hand, wiping it down Deadlock’s chassis.  “It was easy enough to issue them through the command console.”

“You.” 

“Yes.” The word was barely audible. “Your orders were very thorough.”

“And.”

“We’re heading back to the Hub. As Megatron required.”

“You obey Megatron,” Deadlock said, a wry hardness in his voice, summoning strength, pushing up to his elbows.

“I want you happy,” Wing said, his gold optics fleetingly touching Deadlock’s.

Deadlock froze in incomprehension, halfway sitting up.  “…why?” 

Wing hesitated, his mouth working through a half-dozen expressions. “Don’t you?”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My god I suck at updating

Deadlock squared his shoulders, running a hand over his primered replacement armor. He could still feel the dings from the rounds over his arms, his chassis.  He’d been injured worse, he’d reported back from the battle in worse condition. It just hadn’t had the same stakes, somehow. He gave a nod, as if steeling himself, before slapping the release button, opening the hatch. 

Megatron was waiting at the bottom of the ramp, managing to exude amusement and impatience at the same time.  Deadlock’s feet clanked down the ramp, Wing’s lighter step behind him.  He felt a strange comfort in the mech’s presence, even while the jet unsettled him, the strange flashes of kindness, dimming into a sort of dead numbness.  It stirred him up, distracted him. 

And he could not afford distraction right now. 

He halted before Megatron, tipping his head up to meet Megatron’s gaze, cool and level.  He hoped. “Won.”

“So I heard,” Megatron said.  “I also heard you were ambushed.” 

Megatron was playing out information, like a limed line.  Deadlock’s brow furrowed. Who could have known that? Who could have contacted Megatron before his ship arrived?

He scowled. “Lockdown.”

He could feel the approving glow from Megatron, that he had figured it out, that he hadn’t lost his edge in the labyrinth of Decepticon inner politics. He didn’t bask in it: Lockdown didn’t do anything on his own. Even if he hated a mech he’d wait till someone was paying him.  Which meant someone was behind it.  And he couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that Megatron knew. 

It didn’t matter: A mech who could not survive a little betrayal did not deserve to lead.

“And did I hear that your little jet saved you?”  A flick of his optics over Deadlock’s shoulder, to study the jet. 

“I assisted,” Wing said softly. “Merely.”

“Don’t speak,” Deadlock snapped, over his shoulder, glowering at the quirk of Megatron’s smile. He’d discipline the jet later.  Wing didn’t know how important this was, how delicate Deadlock’s standing.  Were it anyone other than Wing, he might suspect sabotage or some malign motive. But he knew Wing too well by now.

Still, the slip wouldn’t pass unnoticed by Megatron, the slip, speaking a ream of poor control. It had been fine before, but now….things had changed, and he could feel it, the ground tectonic, shifting under his feet.

 “Assisted.  Merely.”  The red optics danced between them.

Deadlock could feel Wing’s confusion and dismay. He hardened himself to it.  “He fought. As I told you he would.” His mouth was hard, daring any retort.

“He fought…to save you.” 

Deadlock frowned. “He is loyal,” he said, stiffly, his fists curling, stung, scraped raw by the goading amusement in Megatron’s voice.

“I see.”  And in those two words, Megatron turned ‘loyal’ into a weakness and the rescue into an indictment.  The mouth curled into a venomous smile.  “We will discuss the particulars later.”  He took a chivalrous step back. “I shall leave you to…settle yourself.” He turned, swiftly, his mass moving faster than it looked possible, a deceptive speed that had taken many enemies off guard.

Deadlock was never off guard. He stood, rigid, wrapped in anger, until Megatron had topped the ramp, headed, with one last, wry over-the-shoulder glance, from the docking bay.

He could feel Wing nearly vibrating behind him, tense, strangling in a net of fear and indecision.  Deadlock’s mouth shaped a snarl as he turned his head, blue optics scalding with contempt. 

“I--.” Wing cut himself off, almost folding into himself, as though running out of some hopeful fuel.

“Follow me,” Deadlock said, his voice colder than space. 

[***]

“What.”  Deadlock rounded on Wing the instant the door to his quarters closed behind them, “was that?”

“Drift, I—“

“Deadlock!” Deadlock swung, backhand, one white armored fist slamming against the jet’s cheek. “Don’t call me that, again. Ever.”

Wing swung to the side, thrown off balance, physically, mentally, by the blow.  He barely caught himself, one hand grabbing desperately for the berth.  Deadlock snarled above him, a feral creature’s roar of triumph, before he flung himself on the jet, tearing away the hand Wing had reflexively clapped over the blow. Gold optics, round with fear, found his, the jet shrinking back against the berth. 

Deadlock squeezed the arm, hard, compressing the wrist until he felt the metal protest under his fingers, hauling Wing up.  He would not let Wing face this like a weakling. He had wronged. He had to be corrected. On his feet. “You don’t know how important this is!” he bellowed. “You don’t understand what’s at stake. How _dare_ you do that? How dare you make me look like a fool!” 

Wing blinked, confused, and when he spoke, his voice was laced with fear. “Should I not have rescued you, then?” 

Deadlock raged, rearing back for another hit. “NO!”  It wasn’t the point. He couldn’t explain it, and all his frustration and clumsiness and this stirring in his chassis he didn’t want to feel, some eel of discontent and disruption flipping in the darkness of his core seemed to lash into that word, the only sound he could make.

Wing spun, as his feet hit the ground, turning and running, a desperate flight.

With nowhere to go.  Wing pinged off the locked door of Deadlock’s quarters, ricocheting around, like a trapped bird, frantic for freedom, his shoulder striking against the door, as he spun, optics wild, dashing to the back. Deadlock stood, stunned, at the desperate flight. He was so used to Wing’s quietness, his complacency, his placidity in the face of…everything. This sudden burst into action signaled something cracked, something broken. He heard a heavy thud from his maintenance facility, the door snapping closed.

“Wing.” He coded the door. It blatted against his palm, locked.  At one level it was ludicrous: Wing cowering, with no escape, in a washroom. But on another, it was spark-rending, reminding Deadlock of days he’d rather forget, when he’d fled, when he’d hidden in the gutters, cramming himself in any corner, any crevice, just to hide his face from the brutal hard reality.

It took the work of a moment to code the door open, the lock slowing him down just enough for the memory to slap at him like a cobweb’s ghost, and Wing hunched, just as Deadlock imagined, in a ball in the bottom of the washrack.  Part of him rejoiced, crowing at the power, while another part shattered, seeing Wing balled and hunched, as Wing broken, as something beautiful damaged beyond repair.  The abjection was intoxicating and cloying, a food almost too sweet.

He crouched, resting one hand, impassive, emotionless, on the shivering wingpanels.  Wing flinched, burying his face under his arm.  Deadlock grunted, bending lower, scooping the jet up, using all the strength of his battle-hardened servos, pulling Wing into his arms.

And the jet who had so easily, so callously, thrown ‘Drift’ around in the underground City, seemed only intent in curling into a ball, winding himself inward; as though all thought of escape had perished and he sought to annihilate himself, like a serpent eating its tail.

“I can see about letting you go flying, tomorrow,” Deadlock murmured against one of the slim spires near Wing’s neck.  No response, except a tighter curl into himself.  Deadlock pushed on.  “I didn’t see it. During the battle.  You flying.” And he hadn’t realized till he said it that he wanted to see it, wanted to see Wing in action. He’d only seen him fight once and he had been…breathtaking, and Deadlock’s spark had stirred with want, a possessiveness beyond lust. A stir against him, wing panels shifting miserably. Deadlock pressed his mouthplates together in frustration. 

Deadlock thought of carrying him to the berth, but that place seemed…wrong somehow, some parody of normalcy, some bed of domination and pain.  He gave up the thought, curling himself, instead, around the tight, shivering ball of white and red, on the cold, hard floor of the washrack, his last words seeming to scurry as echoes in the corners, smelling of the acrid tang of old cleanser, helpless against this.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Turmoil's here to sleaze on everyone's fun. :)

Deadlock glowered, chin tipping down, as he entered the room.  Wing trailed behind him, cowed.  The jet had endured—Deadlock could think of no more accurate word—the bathing, the polishing Deadlock had done to him, biting down on a whimper as Deadlock had swept the polishing cloth in long, gentle strokes over the thighs, down the footplates, pulling a high, deep gloss from the armor. Wing had lain, like a doll, letting Deadlock prepare him, limply obedient.  

And now, he floated in Deadlock’s wake, as they entered the command room.  Deadlock nodded at a few faces he recognized: Bombshock, Sixshot, and then stiffened. Turmoil.  Should have expected it, he thought. Should have expected one or the other of them made this little confrontation happen—Megatron or Turmoil. Or both.  

He moved to the energon dispenser, drawing a glass of high grade.  He took a sip, as though measuring it, rolling it around in his mouth, before turning and handing the glass back to Wing.

Wing took it, wrapping numb fingers around the round shape. He knew, implicitly, at this point, what Deadlock intended: a strange generosity, trying to share the little luxuries of his position with Wing.  And as much as Wing was capable of hate, he hated these acts of kindness. Deadlock would be easier to understand, less unsettling, if he treated Wing as an object, a possession. Even before, the polishing, the waxing, could be that: pride in ownership, and nothing more.  But these…little treats, little caresses,

But it was these moments where he saw the almost hopeful earnestness in the optics, the way the thumb lingered, stroking his hand as he wrapped it around the cylinder, that shattered that image, like the ground breaking apart under Wing’s feet.

He took a sip, because he knew it was expected, feeling the energon rush through him, refined and rich, like a sweet effervescence.  Deadlock gave a lopsided smile, half-approval, half-gratitude, that seemed to rock through the air, unsettling, before turning back to the crowd, scowling at them.  

“I see your luck’s still holding,” a mech said, approaching him.  

“Not luck,” Deadlock said. “Fought. From the beginning.”

“You are always so very, very proud of that, aren’t you, Deadlock?” Turmoil, taking the first opening to wedge himself into the conversation.  

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Deadlock’s head tilted up, fearless, into the larger mechs’ gaze.  He’d been recruited by Megatron himself.  Megatron, who had just entered himself, the room’s far end.   Bombshock saw him, too, turning half-away, uncomfortable.  The tension between Deadlock and his former commander was palpable, impossible to ignore.

“It’s a sign how slow you are,” Turmoil said, evenly.  “To have fought for so long and only now just reach command cadre.”  He shouldered Bombshock out of the way.

“Because you were in my way,” Deadlock retorted. His voice wasn’t as cool or controlled as Turmoil’s: hostility radiated from his frame like heat. Wing shifted uneasily on his polished footplates, behind him.

“In your way.”  Turmoil gave a throaty laugh.  “Your view of the world is always so…interesting.”   The red visor shifted its attention to Wing.  “And is this your little keepsake?”

Deadlock bristled, and he could feel Wing tense behind him.  Say nothing, he thought, furious.  Say nothing. Don’t give him the satisfaction of your fear.

“Pretty,” Turmoil said, reaching for Wing, stroking one broad finger over the jet’s forearm blade.  “I might request him from Megatron for the night.”

Gold optics shot a panicked glance at Deadlock, the hands clutching at the glass he held, but Wing kept his silence.

“He’s mine,” Deadlock said, flatly, challenge and fury in his gaze.

“Surely he can speak for himself,” Turmoil said. “What do you say, little jet? Would you like to come with me tonight?”

Wing cycled a fast, sharp vent, but he said nothing, meeting the red gaze evenly.

“You can let him speak, Deadlock.”

“I can. I won’t.”  A hard stare, after a surge of relief: Wing had obeyed, this time. He had learned.

Turmoil considered, head sliding back, in a hooded, serpentine gesture. “We own nothing, save at Megatron’s will,” Turmoil said, evenly, another attack, sheathed in obedience.

“Deadlock has earned his little toy,” Megatron said, smoothly, stepping closer.  “Though if he ever loses that right, it will be to me.”  A hard smile that shook the foundations for both of them.  

“You haven’t?”  Turmoil tilted his head, looming over even Megatron.

“Oh. I have.”  Megatron reached forward, tipping the jet’s chin up with one finger. “Haven’t I?” His mouth quirked. Wing nodded, the wing panels trembling behind him.

Megatron smirked. “Oh, Deadlock, you have been working with him.”  Slipping Turmoil more arrows for his quiver along with the compliment.

Deadlock tucked his chin, glowering as Megatron laughed, patting his shoulder almost companionably.  “Perils and pleasures of command,” Megatron said, like a lesson, turning away.

[***]

Wing leaned heavily on Deadlock’s arm as they made their way down the corridor back to Deadlock’s—their—quarters.  He’d finished the glass Deadlock had given him, then another, then half of a third, as the meeting swirled in earnest around him. It was a sign of the nothing he was that his presence was tolerated: what could he do? Who could he tell? Plans and maps and acronyms, dozens of things Wing had never concerned himself with, names of places that had no meaning for him, reeled out in front of him, and he sipped, and sipped, until the meeting ended, and Deadlock had turned and seen his glazed optics, the way he swayed, slowly, from side to side, a nothing, solacing itself in liquid oblivion.

Wing had managed to mask it, he thought, as Deadlock made his excuses, pulling the jet with him. “Sorry,” Wing mumbled against him, aware he’d transgressed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Deadlock said, his voice tight, tugging Wing faster down the hallway.  “Should have watched better.”

“Deadlock. Please.”  Wing tried to stop the other mech, hands on his shoulders, slowing him to a stop.  “Don’t give me to anyone.”  His optics were wide, terrified. “Please.”  Deadlock could feel the vibration in his shoulders: the jet’s hands shaking with terror.  “I’m sorry. I’m….so sorry.”  He threw himself forward, his inebriated weight falling on Deadlock’s chassis, his mouth, tingling with the high grade, finding Deadlock’s in a seeking, importunate kiss.

He took the kiss, pulling the jet against him, thrilling to the tremble of fear against his frame.  And a hard taunt was in his chassis, fighting for freedom, wanting to lash at Wing, just because he could, just because he had that power to hurt, to control, to terrify.

Wing broke the kiss, his mouth sliding off Deadlock’s, hands trailing down the frame as the jet buckled to his knees, mouth tracing a warm, wanting path of kisses down Deadlock’s chassis, glossa flicking in the panels of Deadlock’s abdomen until the other flinched from the sharp sensation, one hand moving to Deadlock’s interface hatch, levering it gently aside, his mouth moving to form a hot circle on the spike’s cover.

Deadlock’s hand fell on the other’s shoulder, stroking the pinion idly, twitching as his spike cover retracted, the jet’s mouth seeking the tip of his spike, glossa flicking and circling the head.

“Wing,” he groaned, his spike raging with need, lubricant pushing from the vents, feeling the jet’s mouthplates closing around his spike, sucking him in.  Wing whimpered, hand gliding down over Deadlock’s hips. Power, control, his to take.

But that was what the Senate had done, before the war, the Security Forces, everyone trampling on the will and dignity of the guttersmechs.  Was he any better for doing it himself?  That question led to too many others, uncomfortable, swirling like vertigo around the edges of his cortex.

No. Wing was his prize.  He had suffered, he had earned.  And if he wanted Wing to suffer, he could.  But if he didn’t want the jet to suffer, he had that power too.  And this was too much like the gutters, Drift trading whatever he could for some small mercy, as though mercy could be bought.

He pulled back, hissing at his own lust as he popped his spike from the other’s mouth, tucking it with force into its housing and tugging Wing to his feet and down the corridor, coding the door open with a  remote burst. He flung himself onto his berth, intoxicated by the swell of power, of control, inebriated by the jet’s fear, pulling Wing on top of him, the mouth, the hands, eager to prove to him Wing’s tremulous devotion.

Wing fell on top of him, heavy and awkward, which somehow only aroused Deadlock more. He pulled the jet into another kiss, tasting his own lubricant on the jet’s glossa, hands roaming over the silky folds of the wingpanels, stroking away the desperation and fear.  Wing clung to him, silver thighs sliding over his, whimpering against him, his fear whipping up Deadlock's desires.  

Deadlock's hands slid down over the hips, the fine angles of the skirting panels, feeling Wing squirm against him, one of the jet's own hands sliding between them to open his interface hatch, willing to offer anything he had to Deadlock.  

Deadlock felt a sharp grin over his mouthplates, his own panel releasing, his spike, still rigid with desire, jutting up between them. And for a long moment he held them both there, his spike sliding over the equipment covers, leaving possessive smears of lubricant, marking Wing with his desire.  Wing shivered, less from fear this time than arousal, his EM field flaring, like a thousand tentative prickles, over Deadlock's.

There was no need to rush, but no point in delay: their desires whetted past the point of reason, and Deadlock lifted with his hands, hiking the silver-white hips up, rocking Wing back so that the mouth of his valve hung over the erect spike. He caught the jet's gold gaze, his own blue and hungry, an endless sea of need.  

Wing whimpered, shifting his weight, lowering himself onto the spike, his thighs sliding open, his mouth parting around a gasp. Deadlock's hands tightened over the hips, bracing Wing's frame as he began moving his hips, his pelvic frame rising against Wing's, driving his spike deeper into the valve.  

The jet's black hands curled over Deadlock's on his hips, the flared helm tipping back, optics wide and wild as Deadlock began thrusting harder, driving his spike into the valve, his pelvic span hard against Wing, his weight braced between his feet and his shoulders.

The sight of the jet, lost in sensation, wings half-flaring in arousal and balance behind him, shimmering with building charge, enflamed Deadlock, whipping at his lust, and he began driving harder and harder into the jet. The fingers tangled with his, squeezing, almost goading him to grip harder, to dig into the armor plating to the point of pain.  

Deadlock's vents grew ragged, optics enthralled at the jet who was giving himself, utterly and completely, over to Deadlock's will, who was riding the edge of pleasure, giving voice to sharp little cries, his valve twitching and rippling over the driving, hard spike.  

Deadlock roared, pulling the jet against him with one last, brutal thrust, burying his spike up to the mounting rim in Wing's quivering, tight valve, the lining rippling like velvet against him as his spike burst its release, scalding them both with the rush of transfluid.  

Deadlock released his hold, lowering his weight down to the berth, Wing coming down with him, the red knee-stabilizers folding flat against the berth.  The hands released his, Wing tilting back, palms wrapping around Deadlock's dark thighs, the gold cockpit of the chassis heaving from exertion.

He let his optics roam over the jet’s frame, the wing panels still half-unfurled, the ecstasy-rapt face, the flaring pinions, the whole body still impaled on his spike, still trembling around him.  His. He didn’t need to say it to make it real, to believe it. Wing was his, utterly, completely, voluntarily, the combination of fear and overcharge tearing through a last wall between them.  He curled upward, hands coaxing Wing to lie down, along his chassis, curling the head to nestle against his shoulder.

“Never,” he murmured, stroking one hand down Wing’s shoulder, arm, silking over the side of the hand.  He thought of Turmoil, of his own time with the larger mech, and though his voice stayed soft, his mouth twisted in remembered hatred. “I won’t give you to anyone, Wing.”  

And Wing sighed against him, servos loosening, optics dimming with something like contentment and the closest either of them could know of trust.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dubcon, some painplay and mindfucking. Megatron/Deadlock with a side order of Wing.

Another staff meeting, and Wing held himself taut and silent behind Deadlock’s chair.  He could still feel his fear burn across him, like acid etching into his armor, and the trembling gratitude toward Deadlock, bearing the shame of his lapse.  Deadlock merely glowered at the others around the table, defying them, optics steady, body tensed and ready to move.  

The meeting droned on before them, maps glowing in grids above the console, rotated, annotated, and dissected at length.  Deadlock spent little time on this, as if able to grasp a battlefield at a glance:  tactically advantageous terrain, locations of caches, places to snare an enemy, founder their progress.  It was like some gift, almost, if only, Wing thought, sadly, it weren’t used only to destroy.  

Deadlock spoke last, as the most junior of the field commanders, sitting impatiently through the others’ analyses of the terrain.  He tilted against the back of the seat, impatient, as Turmoil began droning over the map.  It was a deliberate insult, a sign of things unforgiven between them.  Deadlock reached back with one hand, hooking  over his shoulder, to pull Wing’s hand over his spaulder.  Wing took the hint, leaning forward, sliding both hands around the other’s neck, in a soothing embrace.  He could feel Deadlock’s smile, a hard buzz against his EM field, taunting Turmoil.  

Deadlock lifted one hand, toying with Wing’s fingers, tilting his head to bring his mouth to the hand, lipplates silky and warm against Wing’s black palm.  Turmoil stalled, red visor narrowing in a glare.  Wing could feel the smile against his palm, knowing Deadlock was goading, playing a dangerous game.  But knowing also that Deadlock could do nothing else.  It was who he was.

Megatron’s glare caught Deadlock, and he dropped the hand, slowly, unrepentant but compliant.  “Deadlock.”

“Yes,” the white mech said.  No excuses, no explanation.  Playing as innocent as his black guilt would allow.

“Your thoughts.”

A soft snort, Deadlock sitting upright, Wing’s hands sliding off his shoulders like a garment.  “Missing this,” he said, spreading one hand over a section of the map.  “Protected route for a flanking maneuver.”

“Salient,” Turmoil countered, pointing at the rise. “Unit would be foolish to risk that we’d have a bottlenecking force there.”

“Air support,” Deadlock said. “Plus wouldn’t take many. One hard, fast ground unit could get enough through to cause chaos.”  He leveled a stare at Turmoil. “They have mechs who would try.”  

“You mean they have mechs who are as foolhardy and reckless as you.”

A slow, serpentlike tilt of the head, dangerous. “Yes.”  The word was spat, a hard bullet of sound.  

“We have reason to believe that with the thinning supply train in this quadrant,” Bombshock cut in, “that they may have orders to minimize risk and casualty.”

“Orders,” Deadlock scoffed.  After a moment, as though realizing the irony, “Equally likely that lack would make them desperate for victory. One last hard push.”

Bombshock nodded, granting the point, but Turmoil rose to his full height, towering over the map. “And equally likely not,” he said.

Deadlock shrugged off the hostility, tracing along the gully. “Better use than a nest on the salient would be to run the channel ourselves.” One finger ran the wavering line to the spot marked with the Autobot unit insignia: heavy infantry, light armored, medical. He splayed his hand like an explosion. “Punch right through them.”

“Deadlock,” Turmoil snarled.  

“Don’t worry,” Deadlock sneered. “You’re too big to fit.”

A palm slammed down on the console, jarring the map—it staticked and then resolved its lines.  “Deadlock!”

“Enough.” Megatron didn’t raise his voice, though the room seemed to vibrate with the power. “Deadlock.”  

Deadlock tilted his chin, but Wing could feel the tingle of nerves.  There was some hold the Decepticon leader had over Deadlock that was deeper than Wing could parse, and maybe deeper than he could follow.

Megatron’s mouth worked, as though torn between amusement and anger. “Apologize.”

A rigid straightening of the spine, a silent defiance.

A stand-off moment, and Wing could feel something rage and crest over Deadlock’s EM.  “Sorry,” he said, quietly, almost a whisper, optics locked on Megatron, focusing the word, the sentiment, his entire awareness, to the silver mech, as though Turmoil didn’t exist.

“My quarters,” Megatron said, smoothly. He waited long enough for the shock to register, a jolt of public shame and shock twitching along Deadlock’s shoulders. “Tonight.”  He turned back to the map, cutting off Turmoil’s grumble of protest with a flat hand. “And bring your little jet.”

[***]

Deadlock’s snarl drowned out the chime of Megatron’s quarters.  Behind him, Wing shifted uneasily, but obedient and close, both suspecting, both hating, what they figured was behind that door.

Megatron made them wait, of course, stretching the moment, using an orator’s skill to gauge how long to crest the rising tension, before opening the door, his face schooled, expressionless. Deadlock could feel the tension between them, an electric crackle, partly of anger, and partly of…something else, the deep and strange bonds of mechs who had fought under the same cause for millennia.  His optics raked around the room, shoulders releasing as he realized they were alone.

“Expecting someone, Deadlock?” Megatron’s voice was antifreeze sweet, as the door closed behind them.  Deadlock shot him a hard glance that spoke everything. Of course, he expected Turmoil to be here, some humiliating show.  “You see, I do show you some mercy.” A large hand stroked over the long white arc of the spaulder. “Now. Shall I take you, or your little pet?” He let his red optics ride over Deadlock’s frame to the tense frame of the jet, teetering on his pointed toe plates, uncertain what would be the least transgression. Wing spread a palm, merely, volunteering, just as Deadlock raised blazing blue optics, searing Megatron’s attention.

“Punishment, yes?” Deadlock hissed, defiant, knowing that was the lure to use. And for a moment Megatron was tempted to refuse the lure, just to remind Deadlock of his powerlessness.  But no. Any loyalty could be broken, even one as adamantine as Deadlock’s.  And it was still something, another weapon in his arsenal, to know that Deadlock would rather endure Megatron directly himself, better than watching his little pet suffer.

He bent down, scooping Deadlock’s helm against him, forcing the smaller mech into a kiss. He could feel Deadlock’s awareness of the jet race over him, like an oil fire, hot and lambent, his body resisting the kiss even as his mouth parted under it.  

Megatron thrust him away, Deadlock staggering back a few paces, before returning, fist swinging upward.  The blow landed, catching Megatron on the jaw, as Megatron retaliated, his cannon-weighted arm slinging itself at Deadlock’s head.  

The white mech staggered to the side. A soft cry: Wing, trembling, twitching forward, optics wide and fearful, uncertain what he was witnessing, unsure of his role.  

Even though he gave that sympathetic little cry, though he seemed ready to jump at any instant, he didn’t move: Deadlock had indeed been working with the jet, a wild hawk tamed to some unstable obedience.  And his pain was palpable, like the tangy rush of the first power Megatron had ever tasted: that of making another mech hurt.  

He kicked, catching Deadlock as he was rising to his feet, his toe plate gouging under the white chassis armor.  Deadlock folded over the foot, bringing one hand into the back of Megatron’s knee joint.  A good strike, and Megatron felt a stab of pain up the leg, matching the desire. Deadlock’s fire, even knowing he was going to lose, was exquisite.  

He hooked under the other mech’s frame, barely containing him as Deadlock tried to spin his legs out of the hold, swinging him through the air to slam him against the berth. He fell heavily on top of the smaller mech, rearing back to strike the mech hard across the face with the back of his hand.  The blow landed, the cheek armor denting, pink energon spraying from Deadlock’s mouth.  Megatron knelt over him, laughing, bracing to swing again.

To find his aim blocked by the body of a white jet, one hand grabbing his wrist.    

Interesting.

He twisted his wrist, pulling it out of Wing’s grasp, thrusting the jet back, onto Deadlock’s frame.  Wing softened his own fall, keeping himself between the two.  

“Your little pet protects you, Deadlock.” He laughed, amused even further by Deadlock’s writhing.

“Hurt me,” Wing whispered. “If you must hurt someone. Me.”  His mouth quivered, defiant, knowing he was breaking the rules, and doing it deliberately, inviting punishment.  

Megatron tilted the white helm up, forcing that trembling mouth into a kiss, tasting the fear and courage and concern, swirling and intoxicating.

A small hand on his arm, a clutch for balance, nothing more, but the cool fingers sent sparks over his net. He thrust the jet away, letting him tumble over Deadlock’s frame, his own hand gripping into Deadlock’s white armor, at the hips, drawing the mech down toward him.

The jet protested, pushing himself off Deadlock’s frame, trying to turn and block Megatron. Megatron snatched at one of the shoulder nacelles, wrenching one of the pinions.  Wing cried out, arching up, trying to relieve the strain, mouth parted. It was beautiful, his pain, gorgeous and lush and sweet and freely given, unlike Deadlock’s hidden and grudging. “Unwise, little jet,” Megatron purred, letting Wing feel exactly how much he enjoyed the jet’s pain.

“Deadlock’s hurt.”  

Megatron twisted the pinion, feeling the metal protest under his fingers. “So are you.”  

Wing shook his head, falling mute.  A surrender, or at least an admission.

“Does his pain bother you so much, then?” Another tweak of slim metal shape.  

“Yes.”  Simple fact, but the clipped word held something back, something Wing didn’t want to say. Something to pursue, further.  Right now, Deadlock was squirming under him, the pain fading, Megatron’s control slipping.

He hauled Wing close, his mouth brushing against the broad audial flare. “Lick the energon from him.”

Wing shuddered, shaking his head.  It was, of course, repugnant, what Megatron was asking, for an innocent jet, who remembered the rank corruption of Cybertron. Megatron pushed. “I will not strike him again.”  

Another shudder, one of a wall falling, resistance caving. He could feel the surrender, the way the body softened, the glow of the optics dimming and yellowing. Megatron smirked, releasing the thin wedge of metal, letting Wing slide back to the berth. He gave a goading, encouraging nod, and Wing turned, his entire frame trembling with revulsion and distaste, as he bent over Deadlock’s face, knees folded under him.  Megatron heard a whispered apology, saw Deadlock’s optics narrow, questioningly, as Wing bent lower, mouth parting.

Deadlock stiffened, trying to turn his face away, a snarl rippling from his vocalizer, as Wing’s glossa touched the bleed of energon from his dented armor. His optics were hot and hard, a glare that could shatter glass, as Wing forced himself to swallow the tangy sweet energon. The two doubtless both remembered the history—the dark luxury of the aristocracy, feeding on the lifeblood of the poor. He remembered the harvesters, bleeders, in the Arenas, promising top credits to the warriors who’d donate, their energon somehow a special vintage.  Further proof, further irony, of the injustice in Cybertron’s very veins—that one mech’s energon would be valued higher than another. And that because he spilled it more frequently.

Deadlock shuddered, and Megatron felt a push of desire through his EM field, a prickling wave, of lust and resentment, hating how the jet’s gentle touches, his meek little licks, aroused him.  

It was time: Megatron unsheathed his spike in a smooth gesture, leaning over, shadowing them both, to plunge his spike slowly into Deadlock.  The white mech cried out, a long ululation, his frame rigid on the berth, hands clawing at the jet’s waist.  

Wing half-turned, optics wide and irate, and there was a strange tussle, Wing and Deadlock struggling together, ending with Deadlock’s arms high over head, linked with Wing’s. And it took Megatron a moment, studying the twisting lines of Deadlock’s frame, to realize that Wing hadn’t pinned Deadlock down: Deadlock was holding Wing back, tangling his fingers with the jet’s and keeping him from turning on Megatron.

Interesting. And more than that…arousing.  Megatron felt his spike surge in the valve.  Still so much unknown in Deadlock, and just when he thought he had the mech’s depths entirely plumbed.

But right now, the struggle between them was simply too arousing: Wing’s agonized worry, and Deadlock’s fight between his own lust and his want to protect his little jet. Megatron growled with want, thrusting his spike into Deadlock, hard enough to jar his shoulders against the berth, the body twisting and writhing around him, swirling the velvety cilia deliciously over his spike nodes.  

He growled, trying to keep his own lust at bay, hammering against Deadlock’s pelvic  frame, until his own body betrayed him, rising charge, whipped by his thoughts, cascaded him into overload, and his datafluid rushed, hot and urgent, through his spike channels, into the willing, grasping valve.

Deadlock arched, and it struck Megatron that as he howled, a primal sound of pain and lust intermingled, his body riven by Megatron, his optics were locked with Wing’s, whose mouth formed a matching shape, like a closing circuit.

And even here, even now, Deadlock didn’t forget, the fluid suctioned into the data reception chamber, Deadlock giving a fluttering gasp as the data unspooled over his own memory net. And the grip on Wing released, turning into an embrace that pulled the jet against him, the mouth seeking Wing’s, his body undulating, in a slow wave of pleasure.  Something to see, something to study, Megatron thought, but right now…he dropped his weight on his elbow, lowering himself down to lie beside them, spike still deep and hard in Deadlock’s body, watching their earnest passion like a mystery, a flower unfolding its drowsy petals before him.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> possibly squicky dub con topping

Megatron onlined before the other two, optics dimmed to a miner’s lowlight. A feature he’d held onto, through all his upgrades, as a reminder of where he’d come from.  Strange to think that there was a time when red optics were a mark of contempt, those who had to work or live in darkness.

Those red optics flicked to the closed shutters of Deadlock, and he wondered how different the world looked through the mech’s new blue. 

But mostly, he watched the two of them, the tangle they’d made of their limbs, Wing’s wingpanels spread open like some sort of shield over Deadlock’s frame, Deadlock’s hands twined around the jet’s waist. He’d eased himself back, spike retracted, studying them like some puzzle.  Even their ventilations had synched. 

Megatron, never one not to intrude, stroked one hand over the air above them, feeling the cottony tickle of their EM field against his palm.

Wing shifted in his recharge, nuzzling his head more tightly against Deadlock’s shoulder, giving a sighing vent. 

Megatron lowered his hand, letting one fingertip trace the air above the exposed channel, the bare metal where the Great Sword once lay. He wondered how it felt, to see the artifact in another’s possession, to be able to touch but not own.

A wry smile at the thought. Touch, but not own.

He owned all.  All that was worth owning.

He dropped his hand down, hooking two fingers around what had served as attachment braces for the sword.  Wing jolted online, and he could feel the flutter of alarm, the burgeoning cry of shock.  The gold optics were beautifully expressive—fear, dismay, every range of despair, as they focused, eventually, on Megatron.

Deadlock onlined, blue optics immediately hard, hands digging in to the jet’s backframe, jealous and possessive.

Megatron squeezed the braces, drawing back, feeling Wing come with him, arch off Deadlock’s chassis. 

“Leave us,” he said, quietly, his optics devouring the naked emotion on the jet’s face. Deadlock  was always too guarded, too close in his emotions.  He could see the appeal of the jet’s openness. 

“No,” Deadlock sat up, legs tangled in Wing’s. 

“Yes,” Megatron said, amused. 

“I gave my word.”

“Deadlock,” Wing said, voice soft, importuning. Short utterances, hardly sentences, meaning pared to tone and timbre.

“I gave my word,” Deadlock said, pushing Wing aside, tugging his legs free.  “I gave him my word.”

Megatron smirked, never letting go of the small projections.  “You cannot give a _thing_ your word.”

Deadlock snarled, blue optics blazing. 

Megatron turned to Wing. “What did he promise you, little jet?”

“That he wouldn’t give me to someone,” Wing cried out, his voice strained, distressed. 

“But I’ve already had you,” Megatron reasoned, coolly.

Deadlock gave a dangerous growl, coiling himself, before a hand on his wrist stopped him.

“No,” Wing said, shaking his head, despite the pain in his voice, Megatron’s agonizing grip on his armor.  “Please.  It’s all right.”

“Wing.” Deadlock’s brow narrowed under the heavy helm, a legacy of the city he’d betrayed: a constant reminder of what Wing had lost, and for whom.

“Don’t get in trouble over me. Please.”  A wan smile. “I’ll be fine.”

Deadlock’s optics shot to Megatron, dubious.

Megatron smirked. “Do you trust either of us?” A goad, as much as a question. “I will return him in working order.”

“I can stay.” The words hurt to say: apparently Deadlock had discovered something he wanted less than Megatron taking Wing in front of him. And that was taking Wing with him sent off to wait. Again.

“Leave.” The note of command and Deadlock flinched, hating his own obedience.  If he could have killed Megatron with a look, he would certainly have tried. He gave a final, outraged snarl, his engine screaming into a rev, as he stormed to the door.  One last look, over his shoulder, strange and worried and blue.

And they were alone.

Megatron released his grip, watching as Wing slumped down, landing on his palms, wingpanels flaring out for balance. “You don’t fear me,” he said.

“I fear what you can do to Deadlock,” Wing murmured.

“Wise. And foolish to admit it.” Megatron settled onto his back, pillowing his head on one hand, looking up, frank and curious, at the kneeling jet.

“It is a truth you already know,” Wing said, simply.  His hands fluttered, the only outer sign of agitation, before settling on his silver thighs. “What would be the point of hiding it?”

“Defiance.”

“Is…defiance wise?”  The voice was soft, like a silk-velvet cloth swept over Megatron’s armor.

A laugh, and Megatron felt his chassis shudder under it—a deep and honest sound, a laugh he hadn’t used since the mines.  When everything was simpler. Still focused, still determined, still dogged, just…less complicated, less crowding with obligations and concerns.  His free hand reached for Wing, pulling him down by one shoulder.  The jet unfolded himself beside Megatron, nervously tucking in alongside the larger mech. Megatron drank the jet’s hesitant discomfort like a fine, rarefied vintage. He stroked his hand down the jet’s back, idly tugging out one wing. He could feel the resistance, the nervous electricity thrumming over the jet’s frame, as he let his wing unfurl.

Megatron let his hand tighten over the longest strut, twisting against its mounting bracket.  “I could tear this from you.”

He felt it tremble in his fingers, vibrating against him. “Yes,” Wing said, optic shutters giving one quick, nervous blink.

“Would that make you sad, little jet?” The malice was piquant, tingling tart like blood-energon on his glossa.

“Yes.” Another answer, almost a whimper.

“And will you beg me not to?”

A shake of the head. “It would not sway you,” Wing said, quietly, as though merely speaking was a defiance.

Megatron smirked. “But it would rob me of the pleasure of you begging.” He tweaked the bracket again, the jet wincing, a shudder of pain through his frame.

“A leader need not revel in the suffering of…things.” The optics dimmed; Wing was merely a thing, a possession. 

Megatron felt a rumble of pleasure at the soft challenge, mingled with submission, and his fingers stroked along the wing before releasing it. “I promised Deadlock I would return you functional.” As though that constrained him: the jet’s submission was a challenge to probe another time.  Right now, he had a curiosity to indulge. 

He curled his spinal struts, pulling Wing closer into a sudden kiss, tasting the fear in the other’s systems. It was a certain courage, he thought, to feel this fear and not act on it.

Megatron hauled the jet’s frame over him, before breaking the kiss, almost gently. “Do you know why I kept you?”

A shake of the head. “Deadlock is already yours.”  

As though that could be the only reason. “But you are not.”

“You have taken me.”

“Yes.” Another smirk, and he stroked one hand over the jet’s rounded shoulder, watching the pinion duck and rise under his touch.  “You have not.”

“I…,” Wing froze, his systems vibrating rigid with tension. 

Megatron tipped his chin up in challenge. “Show me your history, Wing.”

Wing shivered out of his shock, comprehension firing over his sensor net.  Megatron smirked, the hand sliding over the jet’s body dipping between his legs.  Not inviting, simply indicating. “Show me,” he repeated.

Wing slid lower, his ventilations sharp and short, almost whimpering as his spike slid to pressure, leaving a tentative trail over Megatron’s pelvic armor before finding home. 

Megatron growled, softly, a feral invitation, hands stroking over the jet’s body, as though he needed soothing, comforting, even for pleasure. His fingertips grazed the wings, stirring electrons over them in swirling, delicate caresses. 

Wing whimpered, his own hands clutching over the squared chestplate, as he began moving, his spike rocking slowly in the valve.

Megatron wanted violence, expected sharp, hard, violent thrusts.  Wing’s gentle movement, a slow, tidal roll against him, was unexpected, and his systems recoiled, confused, in disarray, for a moment before surging forward, the ground underneath the slow gallop of Wing’s body. 

The charge built between them, silent except for the hydraulic pushes, the huffs of ventilation between them.  Megatron was fascinated by the jet’s face, the expression one of rich torment, hating what he was doing; fearing to do otherwise.

A sharp cry, that vibrated from the depths of the jet’s body, his whole frame trembling with the sound, growing to a keen that filled the room, Wing arching up as the overload wracked him, his hands curled into sharp claws, his face a paroxysm of ecstasy and regret. 

Megatron groaned, feeling the rare sensation of another mech’s fluid, hot and almost hard, inside him. Then the data burst over him, an effervescent intoxication, pearlescent and restless.

And he saw: Wing’s Cybertron, a landscape of despair, and a desperate flight.  Wing’s new city, bright even in darkness, glowing with hope.  He saw it through a double lens—Wing’s own pride and homesickness, and his own hard-edged emotion, verging on envy.

Wing fell against him, metal thunking against his frame, the flared wings shuddering back closed, the ventilations ragged and almost weeping. 

Megatron gave a soft sound, a growl of pleasure, magnified, refracted, holding Wing in the trembling darkness, his cortex alight and shimmering with new thoughts, unfamiliar sensations, strange emotions.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: noncon/humil

Deadlock’s anger roiled off him, a fog of fury, as he stormed down the corridor.  How dare he be dismissed like that? How dare he let himself be dismissed?  Wing was his: he’d suffered under him, he’d earned him. Wing was the only thing he’d ever claimed.  And he’d claimed the jet, and taken care of him and hurt for him. 

Wing was his. 

But he had left him, with Megatron, having no choice. Megatron would have his way, no matter what.  And staying, putting up more of a fight, would have been worse in the end. It was a brutal kind of mercy—Decepticon mercy—that leaving him was counted a kindness.

Megatron had given his word. And in all this time, ever since that day he’d called Drift forth, rechristened him, he’d never broken his word, or bent it. He had to trust Megatron, as much as he hated the thought of those dark hands on that white, pure body.

“You look troubled, Deadlock.”  The mocking, sneering tone was unmistakable.

He stiffened, whirling.  “Turmoil.”

An orange visor glowed above him. “Is that all you have to say, Deadlock. I can’t say I’m surprised.  You’ve never been….glib.”

“What do you want.” Not bothering with the uptick.

“What have I always wanted?”  He stepped closer, tilting his helm down, letting Deadlock feel the difference in their body mass. 

“The easy way out.”

Turmoil laughed. “You know me too well, Deadlock.” He pushed closer, his chassis bumping against the white armor. “And I know you, as well.” His voice dropped to a purr that vibrated across the contact between them.

Deadlock growled, his fists balling. “Don’t outrank me, anymore,” he said, his voice chalky with hate.

“No. Simply outclass.” Turmoil’s hands came down, massive and heavy, on Deadlock’s broad spaulders, pushing him backward, pinning him against the wall before the smaller mech could do more than swing a fist at his head.  Turmoil chuckled. “You know I like it when you fight, Deadlock.” He caught the wrist, easily, pinning it up against the wall, bending his head lower, letting his olfactory sensors operate.

“You reek of Megatron,” Turmoil said, and Deadlock felt the rush of the other’s desire over his EM field.  And Deadlock knew how this would end; the way it always did. 

He snarled, raking his free hand down the other’s chassis.  Turmoil gave an aroused hiss, one knee rising between Deadlock’s legs, parting the thighs, raising the trapped wrist until the servos whined, taking most of Deadlock’s weight, pulling him onto his toeplates trying to reduce the strain.  He heard the dark chuckle of Turmoil’s laugh, the larger mech’s hand sliding over him, hard and possessive.

“Megatron, and your little jet,” Turmoil said. “He smells…sweet.”

Deadlock thrashed, driving one leg up in a brutal kick.  Turmoil caught it, throwing the leg wide to one side, taking the opportunity to press himself against the pelvic span, grinding against Deadlock’s body. “You just had him,” Turmoil murmured, and Deadlock could feel the other’s spike thump against the cover.  Turmoil reached between them, and then Deadlock felt the hot slickness of the other’s spike, blunt, massive, sliding over his pelvic armor. 

“Yes,” Deadlock snarled, trying to wedge a foot between them. 

Turmoil laughed, rubbing his spike between them, his vocalizer grunting with desire.  It was repellant. And even so, sheer rote, sheer hardlined memory fired up Deadlock’s sensor net.  He snarled, biting at Turmoil, dentae grabbing onto the armor, even as Turmoil’s hand crept between his thighs, opening his interface hatch. The thick fingers groped over the valve cover, sliding in the leaking wetness.

Deadlock felt the weight of Turmoil’s chin, on his head , the heavy facemask pressing down on his helm’s rank crest, even as his valve cover slipped open, the blunt fingers knowing just how to touch him. He squirmed, trying to twist his body away, but Turmoil knew that in him as well, his hand riding easily over the squirming body. 

The spike stopped its motion, Turmoil sliding down, letting the tip drag over the armor, jab against Deadlock’s own spike cover, and under, to fill the valve’s mouth. Deadlock hissed, twitching his hips up, even as the spike’s girth pressed against the lowest ring of nodes, around the rim. 

A throaty laugh. “What got you out of the gutters,” Turmoil murmured, “how much you’ve always wanted this.”  He held back for a klik, spike taunting, before driving in hard, the spike jamming into his valve, filling him with that unforgotten pain, pressing his lining open and tight.  Turmoil growled, wiggling his hips against Deadlock’s.  “Some things never change, whore.” He drawled the insult, timing it with a slow, agonizing push into the valve, grinding his spike rim against Deadlock’s valve.  The slickness of Deadlock’s earlier coupling aroused him, the scent activated, mixed with his own lubricant, seemed to drive him beyond reason: he began thrusting, rutting against Deadlock, his hand crushing into the pinned wrist, his other hand reaching around Deadlock’s body, the gap between the shoulders and the wall. 

And then Turmoil was out of taunts, his own desires riding him like a feral thing, and he drove, incessantly, mercilessly, against the other, Deadlock’s cries of pain, bitten off, choked in outrage and hate, merely a counterpoint to his driving lust.

Turmoil roared, the sound echoing down the corridor, his spike almost exploding with heat and pressure, transfluid flooding Deadlock’s valve.  Deadlock had locked his datachamber, refusing that much submission, and the fluid had no place to go, swelling around the spike, seeping out between them. Turmoil leaned, heavily, crushing Deadlock against the wall, his chassis heaving, venting hot, dark-smelling air around the smaller mech.  A slow drip, transfluid pattering to the floor between them. 

Turmoil chuckled, releasing his grip on Deadlock’s wrist.  “You know why he keeps you, Deadlock,” he said, setting the smaller mech back on his feet, jerking his spike roughly from the valve, grinning at the hiss of pain.  “You know.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermaths spin out of control. 
> 
> Hey look I'm almost updating on a regular schedule. O_o

“Deadlock.”  Wing’s voice was quiet, hesitant, one palm steadying himself on the door’s jamb.  The room was dark, and thick-smelling, redolent with despair.  His or Deadlock’s? It had seemed to blend, filling both of them. 

No answer. Wing stepped closer, optics moving, cycling down to lowlight, to the berth. There, the shape of Deadlock, crammed into the corner by the berth, as though trying to hide.  Wing stepped closer, dropping to one knee. “Deadlock,” he repeated, reaching one hand to the upraised knee.

“Don’t touch me.” The words were sharp, fast, almost reflex.  Wing’s hand paused over the white greave.

“Deadlock.”  He didn’t know what else to say, so he kept saying the name, over and over, the rhythm falling like a heartbeat.  Wing knelt, tentatively, on the edge of the berth, torn between his own need for comfort and alarmed wariness.  He’d wanted to come back to this, to bury himself against Deadlock, that solid, unmoving surety, the one who had claimed him, made him.  His destroyer was his only solace.

But that was taken from him, now and he felt the loss like the last bit of flooring falling out from under him. He clutched Deadlock’s armor, feeling as though he were falling, tumbling, reckless, out of control. And he could smell, feel, a difference in Deadlock, something off, sour, almost rancid; the black edge of despair. “I—I am all right. As Megatron promised.” Distressed, in need of comfort, but those were becoming almost native states to him now.  And maybe that assurance was what Deadlock was waiting for, what he needed to hear.

“Promised.”  Deadlock sat up, the motion sudden, and Wing felt himself snapping back, startled, his back struts arching with the abrupt movement. “Don’t talk to me of promises.” He shoved Wing aside, the jet tumbling across the berth, gold optics tilted and flickering with confusion.

“I don’t understand…?”

Deadlock roared with fury. Wing shrank back, one arm flung between them, half to block, half to reach out to. “It doesn’t matter what you ‘understand’,” Deadlock sneered.  He seemed to quiver, so full of rage that it was bursting through his EM field.  He pounded, suddenly, on the berth, the sound, more than the force of the strike, startling Wing. 

Wing had thought  himself beyond fear. But this terrified him, even more than Deadlock’s other outburst.  The other had been his fault: he’d been wrong. He had slipped, called him Drift.  He had erred, not understood the rules between them. Here…all he had done was want to help. 

All he’d wanted.

That was the problem. He was a thing. Things did not want.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as Deadlock shoved past him, slamming into the doorlock when it didn’t open fast enough for him.

The door whirred open, and then shut, Deadlock was gone.  The silence seemed to scream at Wing, howling his loneliness, his failure, berating him his very existence.

[***]

Nothing ever changes, Deadlock thought, scowling, slumping insolently in his chair.  He folded his arms over his chassis, one knee cocked up on the table in front of him: physical barriers between him and the rest.

He was aware of Onslaught next to him, giving a fastidious sniff. He was aware of his own reek. He hadn’t done even basic maintenance for days, and the engine under which he recharged had left its fingerprints in grease and oil and stink. It didn’t matter. It kept him safe, saf _er_ , the gutter stink that never left him. 

Nothing ever changes, he thought again, a thought he’d had a thousand times before, the channel worn dark and bleak in his cortex. Nothing ever changes. No freedom, no peace, no security. Not for you. Not ever.

Deadlock heard words drone around him: he ignored them. He was here. It was enough.  Enough to be in the same room, glowering at Megatron, doing his best to meet each of Turmoil’s triumphant glances with flat venom.

“Deadlock,” Megatron’s voice, the only one with any capability to pierce through the fog of his anger.

“What.”  Flat, but empty of hostility. Even now, he couldn’t defy Megatron.  He looked up: the meeting was breaking up around him, datapads being gathered, the lightboard cycling down with a deepening hum.

Megatron grunted. “I’ll speak to you later.”  He swept past Deadlock, following the others out.  Deadlock elbowed himself up, sluggishly startled, but it was too late: the door was cycling closed behind Megatron, silence and darkness settling in around him with dire whispering wings.

[***]

A blat, and then a whine.  Then the door cycled open. It had been a decacycle since Wing had heard the sound, since he’d given up trying to open the door himself. 

A long decacycle, stretching the one ration Wing had found in Drift’s quarters into a series of sips, just enough to keep him conscious.  And then the pathetic, frantic despair when the remaining energon had dried overnight, and Wing had found himself cracking open the cube, desperately licking at the sour pink crust.

And then Wing had given up on that, lying on the floor, letting his systems cool against the heavy floor tiles, taking the load off his balance gyros.  The ceiling became familiar, too familiar, and he offlined his optics, eventually, letting the charge go back to more vital systems. There was nothing to see. Nothing to hear, really. Deadlock was never coming back. He was going to die.

For days, he had waited for it, patiently, wanting death to take him, finally, and knowing he didn’t deserve to pass easily. He accepted the pain, the agony of long suffering as his due: the murderer of his kind, the wages of his arrogance.  It would end, finally. It would be over. 

The sound struck his skin: he’d offlined audio long ago, and he felt himself moved, lifted up. Not as movement, contact on his armor, but as a sudden wild swing of his balance gyros. He turned his face away—or tried to. His body was so unused to moving that the servos whined.

A rumble against him, and a sudden bright, sweet burst of energon in his mouth: tart and pink. He could taste the pinkness, trace every watt of charge that raced over his circuitry, blazing him back to life.  He onlined his video feed.

“Later,” he heard, feeling his body stiffen, his body recognizing the voice: Megatron.  He spluttered in the energon, cortex throwing the memories of their last meeting at him, the touch becoming sinister.  Not now. Not on top of everything. He couldn’t bear it.  He struggled, but his undercharged limbs barely stirred, his frame shifting listlessly against Megatron’s. 

A hand clamped over his chassis, stilling him. “Do not.” 

He wanted to defy the order, but lacked the will, the coherence. He could only lie there, the world resolving around him, realizing he was cradled on Megatron’s lap, the heavy cannon on the warlord’s arm under his helm. 

Megatron grunted. “Deadlock abandoned you.” He paused, as if waiting for an answer. 

“I deserved it,” Wing said, his voice rusty and hoarse.  He had betrayed Deadlock, disappointed him one time too many. He had failed to be an object, failed to be acceptable. That which had destroyed his city still moved within him.  He twisted with guilt.

“Are you allowed to decide?” That sadly familiar, almost amused, goading tone. Wing wondered, idly, if Deadlock were used to it, as well, if he found the amusement affectionate or disdaining.

For himself, he hated that part of him tendrilled out to any semblance of kindness. “…no.”  The voice was soft, miserable.

“More,” Megatron said, his voice strange, as he pushed more of the emergency ration of energon into Wing’s mouth.  Wing whimpered a protest, but let the energon fill his mouth, the fuel dragging him slowly, inexorably back to life. He’d wanted to die.

But he never got what he wanted.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know! Don't faint. I finished the whole beast last weekend so, yeah maybe posting would be a Thing I Should Do.
> 
> Bad things, good things, bittersweet things. Consensual sex...for a change?!?!?

“Where is he.” Deadlock, chin tucked, as though bracing for a fight. 

“With me.”  Megatron turned his back, deliberate insolence.  “I’m surprised you finally noticed he was gone.”

A snarl of humiliation and outrage.  “Mine.”

“You clearly didn’t want him anymore.”  A deliberately insulting turn of his head over his shoulder. “You discarded; I reclaimed.”

“I didn’t discard him!”

“Abandoned, then.” Megatron turned. “Since you choose to play such semantic games.”

“I didn’t.”  The familiar scowl, the familiar helplessly balled fists. Oh, it was worth it simply to have Deadlock brought to this.  “Let me see him,” Deadlock insisted.

“Why?”  The answer would be revealing, no matter what it was.

The mouth worked, chewing back the reflexive answer.  The struggle was exquisite to behold.  “Fine,” Deadlock said. “Don’t, then.  I don’t care.”

“Lying again, Deadlock?”

“No.” The flat stare, but it was brittle, both of them feeling something crackling under the surface.

“If you can’t be honest,” Megatron said, “how do you think you can earn him back?” He stepped closer, into the tension, feeling the mix of Deadlock’s emotions like a prickly sheath over his EM field.  He wrinkled his nasal plating. “You reek.” 

“So.” A challenge, hard and blunt, chin tipped up.

“So.” Megatron looked down, smirking. “Command line.  Appearances matter.” He snorted, and then moved, scooping Deadlock up, and carrying him, squirming, protesting, toward the nearest public washrack.

“Put me down!” Deadlock demanded, thrashing against Megatron’s chassis.

“When you’ve learned.”  He pinged the door, striding in, and tossing Deadlock on the tiled floor, reaching over him to activate the taps. The air between them hissed with cleanser, shocking and cold at first.

Deadlock howled, cold cleanser splashing over him, splattering onto Megatron’s legs, his optics glowing baleful with humiliation and shock.

Deadlock scrambled to his feet, slipping in the puddle of grime pooling out from his feet, trying to swing a fist at Megatron’s hip.  Megatron caught it, the cleanser making the grip slippery. He twisted the wrist, pulling Deadlock toward him, until the smaller mech’s chassis bounced off his. Cleanser sheeted over both of them, stinging and astringent.  And Deadlock glared up at him, hateful but unresisting, his expectation of what happened next all too clear. Megatron felt the tremor of hate through the other’s frame, one that told him all too well what this was about.

He dropped the arm, Deadlock stumbling back, stunned.

“Not that,” Megatron said, flatly, his voice echoing in the narrow walls of the washrack.  The cleanser had turned warm, pelting down upon both of them, streaking across Deadlock’s face.  He’d never forced Deadlock. He’d never had to. Their complicated game of consent, power and control was just that—a game, an intricate entertainment, as arousing in its own right as the physical contact. 

He stepped back, cleanser sheeting off his silver armor. “You’re better than this,” he said. And that was all he needed to.

[***]

A chime at Deadlock’s quarters.  Deadlock rolled off his bare berth, where he’d flopped at the end of his duty day.  Training? There was no point. Tactics?  Not another word had been said about his command.  He had no reason to leave his quarters, every reason to stay: Turmoil made that clear with every glance. 

He was not afraid. He was _not_ afraid.  It was just a hateful thing he wanted to forget.  Fear was for the unknown: he’d been violated so many times in the gutters there was nothing unknown to him about rape, no vile, petty degradation with which he had not been acquainted.

Deadlock pulled a pistol out, sidling to the door. He hesitated, snarled at himself for hesitating, and slapped the unlock.

“Wing.”

Wing nodded, a strange smile on his face as he stepped over the threshold. He reached for Deadlock, twining his arms around the other’s neck, pulling him into a kiss.  Deadlock stiffened, then melted against Wing, the gun awkward in his hand as he wrapped his arms around Wing’s waist, a throaty sound of repressed desire rising in his vocalizer. His glossa sought Wing’s, torn between force and gentleness, his EM field remembering, viscerally, physically, the velvety feel of Wing against him. 

He pulled away, stepping backward toward the berth, hands sliding to the white wrists, his optics flaring with want.  “You’re back.”

A smile, nothing more. 

Deadlock’s mouth twitched, the kiss still tingling on his lip plates.  “He sent you.”

A nod. 

Deadlock felt a tightness in his chassis, over his spark. “Won’t let you talk.”  Sounded like something Megatron would do, after all.  Here, Deadlock, have your toy, the one you don’t deserve. Have it only half-way. He didn’t need to see the apologetic hitch to the shoulders, the nod, to know the answer.

Deadlock released his grip, turning away.  “No.”

Behind him, a nervous shuffling sound, Wing caught between two orders.  Doesn’t matter, Deadlock thought, don’t care. Not mine. I don’t care. I won’t be played like this.  He felt anger stirring in him, at himself.

“Not playing this game,” he snarled. “Go back if you want.  Just…do whatever you want. Tired of it.”  And he was, tired like he’d been in the gutters, where he’d had no choice and nothing seemed right.  He sagged, under the weight of crushed hopes that had blossomed and died in an instant.

He felt a hand on his upper arm, beneath the spaulder, gentle but insistent, turning him.  He let himself be pushed back to the berth, Wing’s mouth finding the join of his neck and shoulder, arms wrapping around his torso from behind.  He bent his head forward, feeling the gentle nip on his cabling, the hands juddering as they slid down his chassis, over his thighs. Wing’s arousal flared behind him like invisible, diaphanous wings.

He turned his head, only to be guided down onto the berth, Wing pushing his shoulders back gently, as if testing for resistance.

He didn’t resist. He lay back, almost curious.  Had Megatron ordered Wing to this?  No.  He couldn’t imagine, not with the ardent eagerness in the golden optics, the almost shy desire. Megatron could not order that, could not command that into being.

Wing slithered up his body, armor sliding over Deadlock’s chassis, thumbs tracing the line where the white armor met black, his mouth over Deadlock’s, optics lidded with arousal. His hands feathered over Deadlock’s body, stroking up and down the armor, the legs sliding over Deadlock’s.  Even the toeplates seemed to stroke and caress Deadlock’s ankles.  Deadlock felt his ventilation cycle hitch, unused to being touched, being passive and quiescent. He felt his spike surge behind its cover, his EM crackle with need, sharp and bright from absence.

It was a strange pressure, building up over his systems and he forced himself to lie still, his hands idly stroking just the leading edges of the folded wings. Wing sighed over him, the kiss separating in slow, sweet stages, vents of air passing between them. He didn’t speak—neither of them spoke—a strange, velvety silence enveloping them both, in which the soft sighs, and the sleek slide of metal on metal seemed caught, bundled against them.  And Wing moved, with no haste, drawing every movement, every moment, out long and languorous. His fingertips swirled over Deadlock’s thighs, his mouth a hot tongue of fire down on Deadlock’s throat. 

Wing’s thighs sleeked over Deadlock’s hips, and he felt the pressure and slide of the jet’s interface hatch on his, the long projection of the folded wings brushing his inner thighs. It was sensuous, and Deadlock’s body trembled underneath him. 

Wing sat up, holding Deadlock’s hands, bringing them close to his face.  He rubbed his cheek armor against the back of Deadlock’s grazed knuckles, his glossa flicking out, exploring the small gaps between the fingers, optics lidding with desire. Deadlock heard a whimper from his own vocalizer, his optics fixed on the sultry gold optics, the blissful expression on Wing’s face, feeling the jet’s weight, solid and sure on his hips.  Not an illusion, not a phantom, but real, and here and wanting Deadlock. Not merely accepting Deadlock’s touches, not enduring, but wanting, seeking out. 

Deadlock arched up, under Wing’s touch, groaning as one hand moved down to his interface hatch, fingertips trailing over his body. Not teasing, not goading, just drawing the moment out, raising anticipation slowly, unhurriedly.  And Deadlock thought of how often he had rushed, himself, pushing toward the goal, toward the release, as though that was all that mattered.

Wing’s deft hand opened the hatch, the fingertips ghostly touches over the spike cover, lower down.  Deadlock sucked in a vent of air, almost choking, as the fingertips traced maddening circuits over his covers. He tried to fight the release of his spike cover, trying to prolong the moment, but his body betrayed him, his spike cover clicking aside, spike throbbing with arousal.  Wing looked down, his other hand still holding Deadlock’s hand to his cheek.  He sucked one of the battered fingers into his mouth, flirting with his glossa along the knuckles, his optics on Deadlock’s aroused, slick spike.

Wing raised up, the stabilizers on his knees making sudden, solid thuds on the berth as he raised himself up, lowering his valve onto the spike, slowly, lifting his gaze to meet Deadlock’s, letting his weight spread his thighs, pushing him down onto the spike. 

Deadlock’s hands found the jet’s hips, not to control, just resting on the hips, feeling the gimbals shift under his palms as Wing began moving. It was exquisite, their bodies joined by those few points: thighs and palms.  He heard his own ventilations, hoarse and husky, over the smooth slide of Wing’s thighs.  Wing let his optics float closed, mouth parted, as though holding the last dew drop of their kiss. 

The overload seemed tectonic, shuddering up from under Deadlock, as though the room moved around him, the berth heaved and bucked , his systems wrung by the sudden flash and power running over his net.  Wing cried out, his optics falling on Deadlock’s ecstasy, sweet and sharp, the only sound from his vocalizer, a wordless sound of poignant triumph.

[***]

Deadlock awoke, to feel Wing pulling away.  They’d fallen asleep, turned on their sides, arms entwined, Deadlock’s face nestled against the jet’s chassis.  He had just enough time to dim his optics down to the lowlight setting he’d used in the gutters, before Wing disentangled himself, rising to his feet.  Feigning sleep was cowardly, perhaps, but Deadlock didn’t want to risk another confrontation, anything that might sour the sweetness of the night.  When everything you do is wrong, sometimes it was best to do nothing. 

He could feel Wing’s gaze upon him, could see through his cracked optic shutters the tormented longing on the jet’s face, the air over him stirring with a sigh. Wing was leaving: going back to Megatron, obedient to his orders. He was Megatron’s creature, now.

Well, what did you expect? And would you have defied Megatron in his place? Still, even now, would you defy him?

His hand reached, finding Wing’s, wrapping over the back, in a yearning touch.  Wing gave a soft whimper, and his free hand covered Deadlock’s for an instant, like a bond, before he gently pried it off, fingers lingering like a caress.  Wing seemed on the verge of speech, but caught himself, brushing Deadlock’s cheek with one finger before he turned away.

And Deadlock lay there, forced himself to remain still, unmoving, unspeaking, as the thing that he realized mattered more to him than anything…walked away.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reminiscences and reunions

Wing rose—he always rose, impeccably polite—as Megatron entered his quarters.  A datapad dangled from the jet’s fingers: Megatron had given it to him, days ago, and he had spent his idle hours flipping through it. Megatron didn’t know what the jet read, or thought of what he read. He felt an old curiosity stir, one he held back from indulging.

For now.

As this other indulgence. He nodded to Wing, moving past him to the maintenance facility. He heard Wing move, steps quiet and sure, to the small energon dispenser, knowing he’d turn around and Wing would hand him a warmed ration, just so.  A sort of unspoken servitude. He had not asked this of Wing, had not demanded it; the jet had simply done it, as though filling in some justification for his existence.

Perhaps Deadlock had trained him. It was an intriguing thought.

He took the energon—just as he’d predicted—and Wing retreated to the small chair he perched on.  The jet seemed content to stay in Megatron’s quarters. He’d not left unless ordered to. As if, Megatron mused, afraid.  Of what?  Deadlock?  Whatever it was, it amused Megatron to think he was the lesser threat.

“Wing.” 

“Yes.” A little hushed voice. 

Megatron rolled to the berth, feeling the day’s exhaustion roll over him.  “Come.”   He studied the white jet as Wing moved, the graceful, hypnotic sway of his hips as he walked. “So much for freedom,” he observed, his voice bland.

When Wing had flung his old life behind him, it was with violence. He could have resisted, or insisted he not a slave, not a thing. He could have stood up and been beaten for it, perhaps.

He wasn’t afraid of the pain. He had nearly died, brought aboard the ship delirious and injured. He was simply…nothing, an emptiness, a void not worth defending, and it was better in some awful way to turn his attention outward, to fill his emptiness with anticipating another’s will. It was a different kind of selfishness, born of despair, born of the desperate want to deny what he was, what he had failed to be.

He was nothing but a vessel for suffering, and a vessel does not ask to be filled. It merely waits.

He could feel Megatron’s gaze upon him, as he stretched himself beside the larger mech.  One hand tugged at his wing panels. Wing extended one, slowly, feeling the plates lock, spread out over the other’s broad chassis.

Megatron splayed a large hand over the light panels, stroking gently. This was part of the pleasure of it all for him, Wing’s tense obedience.  Like an illicit sample of how the Senators must have lived before the war—every whim indulged, every pleasure broached.

And an added refinement was Wing’s response. Megatron hadn’t taken Wing, not after that first night, not after he’d returned from Deadlock and that night of silence.  But he’d come close, enjoying as a game how far he could push himself without toppling into indulgence. He felt the jet tremble against him, and he could almost hear Wing wondering if tonight would be the night it would happen again, if tonight Megatron would push past this gentle petting.

What Megatron told no one, barely even admitting it to himself, was that beyond all those malign layers…he simply enjoyed the pleasure of touch, of long cycles with no demands, no need to perform.  Times like this, he remembered the mines powerfully. Not the darkness, but the hard camaraderie of the miners. Softness, gentleness, had been ruthlessly debrided from them, burned away as dross.  It was strange to find he enjoyed it this much.

“Wing.”   He waited until the helm tipped back, gold optics finding his face. What did Wing see there, he wondered?  “What do you want?”

Another tremble in Wing’s frame. “Nothing.”

“Nonsense.  It is the nature of being alive to want something.”

A shift against him, the helm lowering, audial fin resting on the crook of his arm.

“You want to go back to Deadlock.”

A hesitation, and he could feel Wing focus on his hand, pressed against the spread wing panel—so fragile, so vulnerable.  “Yes.”

“Why?”

His mouthplates twitched.

“Tell me, and I will let you go back to him, Wing.” A lure, he knew, but also more information. Deadlock was valuable, so long as he was tractable. Wing had value, as a fighter, as a source of history, information that might give them the edge. And there was a way to manage them both. 

One could rule through fear or through gratitude, and Megatron had always found the latter more binding, but the timing needed to be precisely played. 

“He’s…all I have that connects me to my home.”

“He’s responsible for destroying your home, Wing. An odd memento.”

“I am the one responsible for destroying my home. I trusted, I believed.”

“And now.”

A soft shake of the head. “I was wrong.”

A hint of a smile on Megatron’s mouth: he had the source of it, now. “And you want to punish yourself.”

The gold optics shuttered, briefly, as though already in pain. “I deserve to be punished.”

This, he thought; this was the moral core he could use against Deadlock. The smile grew sharper, almost predatory, as he scooped the jet up against him, pressing his mouth against Wing’s.  A hesitation, then an obedient response, the jet’s mouth parting, accepting this, too, as punishment.

[***]

Deadlock snarled, fingers jabbing at the door lock.  Still no sign of another command. He was ready.  He knew it. And worse…he could feel it, like a hunger, something dark and shifting, itching behind his optics. He needed to do something. Sitting around in endless meetings wasn’t winning the war. It wasn’t doing anything except watching himself get soft, weak, losing his edge. Reminding himself of…too many things.

The door cycled open and he froze, one hand hovering over a holster at the unexpected movement. He’d just gotten used to his quarters being empty, and here, now….

Wing.

“What do you want?” he snapped.

Wing’s nervous smile froze, like prey caught by a predator.  “I asked. I asked if I could come back.”

“You.” 

A nod, quick and almost afraid, as Wing stood in the center of the room, palms helpless and open.

Deadlock stalked forward, almost challenging.  “Why.”

Wing shifted forward, clinging to Deadlock’s rigid frame. “You’re all I have,” he murmured.

It was a paltry compliment, but it burned like etching acid on Deadlock’s spark.

He pinched his mouth shut. This was not a time for words, or a kiss, for anything like that vulnerable union. They were both weak enough in this moment and the soft mouth against his would have shattered him completely.

It was enough to pull Wing to the berth, lower himself on top of the jet, mass upon mass, hardness upon hardness. He wanted this right now:  just to feel the cloudfuzz of EM against him, the armor sleek and hard under his. 

He wanted to ask if Megatron had taken the jet, if Wing had felt any pleasure in it. He wanted to hurt himself, hurt them both, with his own questions: images like razors cutting the backs of his optics. Deadlock gave a tight sound, optics yearning for a long moment over Wing’s face, before he lowered down, burying his face in Wing’s throat, seeking nothing but to hide himself from…everything.


	24. Chapter 24

Wing had not recharged well, or fully, his entire time with Megatron: always, he’d been on the edge of anxiety, never knowing when or if Megatron’s attentions might turn cruel, sensing a quiet testing in every word, every touch.

He had fallen into a profound slumber, nestled against Deadlock, one so deep that he hadn’t roused until now, when he felt himself lifted, bodily, one hand under his shoulder, another crooked under his knees.

His optics brightened online, focusing on Deadlock.  The Decepticon’s face wore an almost rueful smile, as he carried Wing from the berth into the washrack. Wing found himself lowered into a cleanser-filled tub, the warm liquid fizzing and tingling over his systems.  Wing couldn’t help sighing into it, his head tipping back against the tub’s rim, soaking in the sheer physical pleasure of it. 

He heard a contented grunt from Deadlock, who dropped down, picking up a scrubbing brush, and scooping in the tub for one of Wing’s feet.  Wing gave a short cry of protest, but the gentle strokes of the bristles against his ankle drowned his protest under waves of tingling pleasure. 

Deadlock smirked, not releasing the heel, stroking the brush slowly against the soleplate of Wing’s foot. 

“Deadlock!” he gasped, hands clutching at the tub’s rim. 

Another pleased sound, the blue optics flicking up at Wing’s face.

“Why are you…?”  Wing shuddered, his foot twitching in Deadlock’s grasp. 

“Want to.”  But the voice was missing Deadlock’s usual bravado, almost shy, almost hesitant.

And Wing understood, suddenly from the shadows of Deadlock’s smile: this was his apology, his attempt to make right what had gone on before between them: the abandonment, the shouting.  It was clumsy and obvious, but it was a change, something Deadlock would never have done, decacycles ago, when he’d wanted Wing to suffer. 

Wing sat forward, the cleanser sloshing in the tub, waves swirling through his armor, reaching for Deadlock’s hand, tugging him closer, pulling him into a kiss.

Deadlock complied, letting himself be pulled closer, one hand still awkwardly clutching the jet’s foot, the brush splashing into the cleanser.  Their mouths joined, and Wing saw the blue optics shutter with desire.  Deadlock never looked more open than in these moments, closed off in his own desire. A strange paradox, but one that seemed uniquely Deadlock. 

Deadlock pulled away, one hand sliding down the captive ankle, teasing up Wing’s leg, the other hand on Wing’s shoulder, pushing him back against the tub’s high rim.

Wing sighed, the movement sending the warm cleanser rushing under his armor, washing over his wires and circuitboards, the hydraulics and the framing struts.  It was delicious and pleasurable and even though he didn’t deserve pleasure he let himself tip into it, his own optics dimming, body loosening in the cleanser. He could feel Deadlock’s gaze on him, and added swirling warmth that sent tingling desire over his sensor net. 

And he realized, in a way, as Deadlock’s hand slid up his thigh, to his interface hatch, that this was a cleansing, a reclaiming—Deadlock trying to wash off all traces of Megatron’s touch, all memory of any pleasure without him. 

Wing reached forward, cupping his palm around Deadlock’s helm, intimate and trusting.  Deadlock leaned forward, his mouth finding the top of Wing’s chassis, at the verge of his collar armor, nuzzling into the warm, sensitized metal.

Deadlock overbalanced, splashing into the tub, cleanser sweeping over the side in great, fleeing waves, the cleanser cushioning him from Wing’s armor. He fell against Wing, between his thighs, caught like  a cradle, and Wing let himself fold around Deadlock, thighs tightening around the other’s hips, arms around the rib struts, tucking his own helm, audial flare flat and sleek against Deadlock’s, into that gap by his shoulder. 

Deadlock shuddered against him, the hard movement stirring the cleanser, the movement fading to a tremor.  The energy between them, charged and sexual, crested, transmuted into something gentler, softer.  Deadlock angled his head, optics closed, tracing a line of kisses, like a plea and a promise all in one.  And when he lifted his head, there was a quivering, tentative smile, the first, newborn, fragile glimmer of hope.

Wing raised a dripping hand, tracing the unfamiliar lines of the smile with his thumb, feeling the tremble under the surface, the beautiful sweep and curve of the lip plates, and the graceful seam between as though trying to memorize that tremulous flicker of hope, feed it gentle embers of his own.

[***]

Turmoil glowered behind his mask.  “And still you indulge him.” He leaned forward, one huge palm flat on the table between them.

“Indulge.”  Megatron gave a half-smile. The other half was a warning. 

“You returned the jet to him.” 

Megatron gave an easy shrug. “I was bored with him.”  Not entirely true.  Though he had noticed himself missing the jet’s simple courtesy.  But that was dangerous in the long term, softening, blunting his edge.  If someone needed to be blunted, it was Deadlock.

“You returned him to Deadlock.”

“Yes.” He tilted his helm back, looking down at Turmoil from under lidded optics. “Do you object to me giving Deadlock my cast-offs?” 

“I object to you giving him what he wants.”

Megatron had to credit—if not admire—Turmoil’s tenaciousness.  At least in this, he was unrelenting.  “You simply misunderstand my strategy, Turmoil.”

“Educate me.” A petulant jut of the mask, arms folding over his massive chassis in a blunt, tactless reminder of his size.

As if that mattered. As if Megatron hadn’t bested Turmoil himself.  His face was stony, voice flat, as he answered. “Why do you think the aristocracy went along with the Primes for so long?  Because they had something tangible they stood to lose—wealth, power, possessions.”  He tipped back in his chair, crossing one ankle over the knee, in the perfect pose of unrattled calm. “Deadlock has something to lose, now.”

Turmoil snorted. “He’ll betray you. As he did me.”

“He will not.”   He paused, stopping to examine his hands, casually. “Really, Turmoil, this is beginning to border upon an obsession for you.”  

Turmoil bridled.  “Because you’re blindered when it comes to him.  You always have been.” 

“I think perhaps you are blindered, Turmoil.” Megatron rose.  “You think you’re above it? Above me?”

“I think I can see more clearly.  You’re not infallible. As the long war demonstrates.” Turmoil shifted, letting his mass tower over Megatron. 

“Indeed,” Megatron said. “I see that one of my failings was in not listening to Deadlock when he complained of your politicking.”

“Deadlock.” Turmoil seemed shocked.

Megatron gave a throaty chuckle. “Did you think it was by accident I would send one of my best, most loyal lieutenants to serve under you?” Two can play deep games, Turmoil, he thought.  “He had many…insightful comments about your command structure.” He let his optics rake down Turmoil’s chassis, leaving his meaning perfectly clear.

“And you let him remain.”  The implication was clear: coldsparked to leave a ‘loyal’ mech to be treated…the way Turmoil treated Deadlock.

“He did not request to be removed.” Megatron canted his helm. “I trust him to know his limits.” And Deadlock had never failed him.

“Trust.” The word, a bitter stone between them.

Megatron could feel it gathering, like charge before a lightning strike.  He’d felt it thousands of times in the Arena, in battle, a mech summoning the urge to strike, force and will uniting. 

He blocked the blow easily, even with all of Turmoil’s mass and force behind it.  He allowed himself a feral grin of triumph as he made his parry, his own hand going for Turmoil’s throat, strong fingers diving in the gap above the collar armor, knowing exactly where to pinch, what lines to compress.

Turmoil clawed at him, but Megatron knew the trick of it, all too  well, from his brief incarceration back before the war:  he knew the trick of hooking his fingers just so, so that any pull to remove them  risked more damage, more pain. 

Oh, the lessons he had learned, all his life.  He let none of it go to waste, not the least scrap of humiliation, of abuse.

He pulled down, feeling Turmoil’s knees buckle, lowering the masked helm to his optic level. “I could,” Megatron hissed, “take out every indignity you visited on him. Slowly. And at my leisure.”  He held the optics with his own until Turmoil blinked. “It would serve you to remember that.”

He thrust Turmoil away from him with a disgusted sneer.

[***]

“Our point of assault,” Turmoil said, tapping one thick finger on the bar’s counter, “is Wing.”

“Our point,” Lockdown said.

“Am I paying you?” Turmoil said, sharply. Revolting he had to buy loyalty, but he had every intention of getting every last scrap of his money’s worth. 

“Fine.”  Lockdown folded his arms over his chassis, hook curling around his other upper arm. “You want me to do what with the jet?”

“Take him to a secure location. Then leave him to me.”

“You can’t do this yourself?” A bit of a taunt. 

Turmoil wasn’t in the mood. “I have better things to do than scutwork.” It was worth it to watch Lockdown bridle.  And true: you didn’t give a mech whose loyalty was so…fungible the high level work. For obvious reasons. 

Lockdown frowned, but backed down. “You’ll pay for that.”

Turmoil chuckled. “You say that a lot, don’t you.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some perhaps much-needed schmoop

Deadlock dropped to one knee on the berth, holding a datapad.  Wing looked up.  He’d gotten the habit of sinking into his thoughts when not alone; and he’d begun to dread it: being used was at least a distraction from all he had thrown away.

Wing uncoiled, giving a faint smile.  It didn’t matter if he wanted it to happen or not, if he was happy about it or not: he was Deadlock’s and Deadlock would do what he willed with him. 

Deadlock thrust out the datapad.  “Stuff on here.”

“Another mission?”

Deadlock shook his head.  Perplexed, Wing took the pad, cycling through the open tab. Music. Art. History.  “Ship’s holovids and stuff,” Deadlock said.  “It’s not much but…,” he shook his head.

Wing looked up.  “Why?”

“I just…tell me what you want.” 

Wing quivered.  He shouldn’t want anything. He was a thing, an owned thing, and nothing more. He should have no desires other than to please Deadlock.  But…Deadlock was asking.  Clumsily, but asking. Giving him permission to be, to want things.  Small things, but these were in Deadlock’s power to give. And the longer he stayed, the more he knew how limited Deadlock’s powers were.

“I…,” he looked at the datapad in his shaking hands. “Music,” he blurted. “Music.  It would be nice.”  He almost expected a trap. “Don’t you think?”

Deadlock cocked his head. “All right. Music.” 

And that was it. No trap. No trick. They’d spent that evening wrapped in the melodies of some foreign world: Deadlock sprawled on the berth, flipping through a strategy manual, Wing sitting next to him, legs draped over Deadlock’s hip, as he read through the entry about the music, reading aloud some of the snippets. 

And Deadlock would turn, optics unfocused as he listened, one hand resting on Wing’s thigh, and then he would curl up, planting a kiss like a seed on the red blaze of Wing’s greave, before stretching out again to his manual. There was desire in his touches, in the heat of his mouth against Wing’s armor, but it was…different somehow. Less possessive and more…wanting. Seeking.

It was the happiest night Wing could remember. 

And he hadn’t expected it to last.  But it did. Day after day, and they fell into a routine that was blissful and comforting: Wing would find some entertainment for the evening, and they’d share it—music. Art.  A history lesson about something other than war.  He spent the day searching, weighing options. It made the hours pass more quickly, and less dreadfully, with each success.

And Deadlock would let himself be drawn into it, not because he cared about it, but because it mattered to Wing. 

Even in Crystal City, Wing couldn’t remember anything like that: someone caring for something only because they cared so much for you that it spilled over, somehow.  And he tried hard not to think about Crystal City, unless he needed to remind himself of pain, to balance the small pleasures these nights gave him.

Tonight, they sat around the holovid display. “The high temple,” Wing said, calling up the display. “In Iacon.”

Deadlock scooted closer, studying.  Wing dropped to a knee behind him, letting one hand brush the other’s shoulders.  He’d never have thought he would want to touch Deadlock, and he hated to think what it made him, but he found comfort in the touch, in the way Deadlock leaned into the touch, one hand brushing his, almost unconsciously. 

“Hard to assault,” Deadlock said, finally.  His other hand pointed at the holovid’s three-dimensional rendering. “Narthex has a nice sharp bottleneck. Inside, the piers break any wave assault.”

“Not everything’s made for war, Deadlock.”

“Should be. This?” He gestured at the hologram. “Could be. Why else make it like that?”

“It’s all how you look at it,” Wing said. “You see everything as war. Everything as a fight.  But there are other ways of looking at things. Other perspectives.”

“Stupid ones, then.”

Wing heard a sound, and it took him a moment to realize it was himself. Laughing.  How long had it been since he  laughed? 

“What.”

Wing couldn’t resist, like a bubble of his old self bursting the surface, and he bent forward, planting a quick, spontaneous kiss on Deadlock’s helm.  They both twitched back, startled, before Deadlock turned his head, wanting more. It was a shy kiss, two familiar strangers, fumbling in a short phrases of a language they barely knew.

They pulled away, slowly, Deadlock’s optics shuttered for a long moment, as though savoring the contact, the memory of it.  After a moment, he blinked, turning back to the display.  “Temple,” he said. 

“Yes.”  Wing moved forward, acutely aware of his hipskirting plate, brushing against Deadlock’s thigh. “Imagine,” he said, “walking into this. Not fighting, just…walking. What that would be like.” He splayed one hand, enlarging the image.  Up the steps, into the narthex, and then through the wireframed walls, into the temple itself, the large rotunda, and the spiral of columns. 

Deadlock’s head was canted, concentrating.  “Big,” he said, finally.

“How would you feel?” Wing pressed.

Feel.  He could almost feel Deadlock’s contemptuous snort, but it never came.  Deadlock was leaning in, optics intense.  Despite himself, he was trying. “Small,” he said, finally. “And lost.  Which is dumb, because the floorplan is open.”

“It’s not dumb,” Wing corrected. “And what would you do? Feeling small and lost?”

A flicker of a smile. “Shoot something until I felt better.” It was a joke.  A small one, faint, and not very funny, but the intent was unmistakable, in the way the blue optic flicked over to Wing’s face, the glimmering smile on the corners of the mouthplates.  And Wing couldn’t stop his own mouth from quirking, its own smile.

A thin wire of connection between them, it seemed.  Deadlock’s smile flared a bit brighter, before turning serious. “I guess I’d move to the center.  Maybe follow the columns.”

A nod, eager. “Yes.  That’s the idea.”

“Why would they design it like that?” Wing rotated the display, focusing in on the columns.

A shrug. “No idea.”

“Think, Deadlock.”  Wing allowed a ghost of admonishment in his voice, like a teacher chastising a lazy pupil.

“I guess…because they want you to feel that way.  And then you get to the center and…?”

“You feel found,” Wing finished.

They both stared at each other for a long moment, the words seeming to resonate through their systems with some deeper meaning.

Deadlock cycled a vent of air, reaching for Wing’s arm, pulling him against him.  It wasn’t a demand, not this time, but a plea, a longing, and Wing let himself be pulled over, onto Deadlock’s body as the Decepticon stretched along the floor. 

Deadlock offered, and Wing took, sliding himself between the powerful thighs, his entire body feeling liquid and sleek.  Deadlock’s hands were gentle on his body, stroking over the folded wing panels, and that precious, sensitive area underneath that made Wing quiver and twitch as he pushed, gently, into Deadlock. He could feel the valve around him, spiraled tight, wanting him.  It was impossible to resist and Wing didn’t want to. For once, he wanted to take the small scrap of pleasure, however short, however smudged. He was wanted…for himself. Not just a prisoner, a thing, but for who he was. He could see it in the way Deadlock looked at him, a hesitancy, waiting, and wanting, a response. 

A note, pure and high, sang from his vocalizer, as the overload washed over them both.

And Wing felt the strange shift in Deadlock’s body, as the fluid rushed between them: Deadlock had opened the datachamber and fell back, panting, hands sliding like satin as they fell away from Wing’s body, Deadlock caught up in the sparkling net of Wing’s memories.

For a long moment, Deadlock was still, lost in Wing’s past, the past Wing himself could barely bear to look at. And then Deadlock turned his face, seeking a kiss that stayed on the surface, lip plates gliding over lip plates, coy and comforting, and when Wing finally opened his optics, Deadlock gave that half-smile he was coming to know so well.  “Perspective,” Deadlock whispered, folding his arms around Wing, and pulling him into an embrace.

They fell asleep under the blue linelight of a Temple that no longer was.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bad things happen

The flight chamber beckoned.  Wing rarely availed himself of it, hating the need that made him fly.  But today, he felt like he wanted it.  Things were small, but changing.  He felt…less dead than before, still numb in parts, like a creature slowly thawing after an age of cryopreservation.  And parts of him hurt because of it, but parts of him just wanted to move and stretch and be.

He cycled through the holoprojectors, finding an exotic planet, lots of forests and rivers, a celadon green sky shining on lavender mountains and violet leaves.  It was beautiful. His wings twitched in anticipation, wanting to feel the warm updrafts under them. 

Wing stepped inside the chamber, cuing up his selection.  He waited until he felt the thrum of the holomatter projectors under his feet before he pushed off, nacelles pushing against gravity, lifting him above the plating just as it seemed to fall away into a long, breeze-waving swath of meadow. 

And he…flew.  The Decepticon warship had a top notch flight facility: he could feel solarlight warming his back, the gentle buffets of breezes and updrafts. He could even smell—sweet flowers, the sharp, greenish tang of grasses. He could  hear the leaves rustling beneath him if he swooped low.  He looped and dove, rolled and scissored over the alien planet, a series of maneuvers designed to keep his flight mods calibrated and tight, but this time they just spelled joy to him. Life, and movement and freedom, or at least the glimpses of freedom one could grasp that kept one moving forward, that tiny spark of light in the darkness.

Darkness: the hologram shut off abruptly, the a-grav suddenly boosting to max, and Wing found himself landing, hard and rough, on the decking. He gave a startled cry. Malfunction. It must be some malfunction or else the ship was under attack.

Gravity normalized, and as soon as he felt the crushing pressure lift from his limbs, he scrambled to his feet, systems still shaking, nacelles still spinning down.

The holodeck door opened, and before he could turn, he felt a hard, cold grip between his shoulders. He cried out, sudden pain shocking his systems.

“Class B inhibitor claw,” the voice said, and he turned, to see Lockdown grinning over him, flicking at a control box on his wrist.  “Hope it hurts.”

[***]

Wing had no idea where he was, only that the engines under his feet, his aft, didn’t sound the same as the bass rumble of the warship. The blaze of pain from the inhibitor claw seemed just now fading, though Wing had to have been out for…cycles. 

Did Deadlock miss him? Did he notice he was gone?

He moved, giving an involuntary whimper of pain.  His wrists were bound, a clamp over his wingpanels, and he was tethered, somehow, to a pole rising up in the middle of the darkened space. 

“You’re awake. Finally.”  A sudden flare of orange-red—a visor lighting up, high above him. 

“Where am I? What are you doing?” He felt foolish asking the questions, part of him imagining Deadlock in the same situation. Deadlock would never succumb to fear, to asking such questions that begged for retorts and refusals.

A chuckle, dark and oily.  “You are going to be fun.”  A mass of movement, the optics lowering near his level. “Do you remember me, little jet?”

“Turmoil.” 

Turmoil gave a  contented purr. “A good memory. I’d hate for you to forget any of this.” He reached forward, slowly, letting Wing’s gaze track the movement as he moved to stroke one hand down the jet’s exposed chassis.  Wing tried to twist out of the touch, biting down on a whimper. 

“You don’t need to do this,” he said. 

“Need?” A shake of the head, and the larger mech dropped to one knee, optics hoving close. “This is not about need. I fully intend to enjoy this.”  The hand curled around one wing panel, twisting it just enough to elicit a cry of pain. 

“What do you want from me?”  Wing could hear the helpless plea in his voice, the weakness, the softness, and he knew Deadlock would despise him for it.  But he was only Wing. And he mourned for the small flicker of what could have been, that feeble flame that had shimmered to life between them, now gone, lost. 

“Your pain,” Turmoil said, leaning in, scraping his face mask against the jet’s cheek. 

[***]

“Megatron.”   Deadlock stormed into Megatron’s  quarters, shaking with rage. He must be angry, Megatron thought, to storm into a place with so many hard memories.

“So I am,” Megatron said, turning from his console. “I presume I owe this meeting to some interesting circumstance.”

“Wing.”

Megatron tilted in his chair.  “I’m perhaps not the best source for that sort of advice, Deadlock.”

Deadlock gave a furious glare. “Turmoil. He’s taken Wing.”

“Evidence?” It would not surprise him, and it would displease him, but he was not to be ridden by the paranoid obsession between the two.

“Wing’s gone. I’ve looked…everywhere.”  The blue optics were nearly frantic.  “And Turmoil’s gone.” 

“Gone.”

“His ship undocked a cycle ago. No orders filed.”

Two rather compelling pieces, yes. “Coincidence.”

“Is it?” Deadlock braced himself, as though for a physical fight. Because that’s all life had ever been to him. 

“Deadlock.”  Megatron tilted his head. “Why are you here? Exactly?”

“I’m telling you I’m going after him.” That truculent jut of the chin he knew so well.

“And if I say ‘no’?”  Megatron suppressed the smile. He already knew this answer.

“I’m going after him,” Deadlock repeated.

So this was his negotiation with authority.  Simply…informing.

“You realize, Deadlock, that you’re too close to Wing. He’s a liability.”

“So?”  The same blunt force challenge. “He’s mine.” And then some of the hard edges crumbled.  “He’s worth it.”  The words seemed to hurt to say, raw and jagged with truth. 

This was what Megatron had been waiting for. Because Turmoil, in his way, hadn’t been wrong, either: Deadlock was becoming too headstrong, too defiant.  He’d had no rein, no leash, nothing real to lose. A mech from the gutters, after all, whose first real possession was a gun.

But Wing…Wing was a means to control him, if used wisely. Which Megatron intended to do. “All right. But if you are wrong…,” he let the sentence dangle in the air, the silence saying all. 

“If I’m right,” Deadlock countered, regaining his footing. 

“If you’re right, you can keep your Wing, and I shall deal with Turmoil.”  Time to tug that rein.

“But….”

“Or I can order the hangar bay sealed from you and you go nowhere,” Megatron said, mildly.  He enjoyed the show of rage whipping like a wildfire across Deadlock’s face, and he could tell the exact instant the other caved.

“All right. But Wing—“

“Is yours. Yes.”  A leader had two hands: one to take, and one to give. 

Another moment of struggle, Deadlock rocking back and forth on his feet from the stress of it. “…thank you,” he managed, his voice choked, the courtesy entirely alien to him. It startled them both, before Deadlock spun on his heel, moving at top speed, doubtless for the hangar bay.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Turmoil

“No more, please,” Wing asked, even though he knew by now Turmoil wouldn’t listen.  The cool air around the huge mech had become a nauseating brush over his EM field, the massive spike tearing into him, again and again in brutal, passionless thrusts.

 His entire life had been reduced to begging, helpless, pitiful.  He wanted to die, he was ready to let go, but Turmoil was a master at keeping him just at the edge, feeding him energon through a cath line, boosting his autorepair, letting him sit for cycles in agony, in the dark, where he became nothing but a helpless immobilized mass of pain, or in the light, where he could see the wreck, carefully brutal, that Turmoil had made of his body. His wings were stripped to bare frames, one hand broken, crushed beyond recognition into a flattened, interlinked mass of sparking pain. His chassis was torn, cracked open, the panels wrenched aside, dotted and spattered with energon.  His spike—he couldn’t bear to think of it without feeling something vital with in him attenuate and fray.

“So musical,” Turmoil observed, stepping back as if to admire his own handiwork, the pink streaks of energon on his spike, where he’d ruptured the lining. “You still have such melody in your voice.” One thick finger tipped up Wing’s chin, stroking down his throat, as though contemplating removing the vocalizer.

Wing shuttered his optics, feeling, still, after all this time when he should have moved beyond fear, the stir of some primal terror in him. He wanted to die, and it was the worst horror to be so close, and have it tugged away from him, inch by inch.  It would maybe be a blessing to lose his voice, to never speak, to become an inward ball of agony and remorse, bitter and ashen.

“I fear,” Turmoil rumbled, leaning close enough that the sounds reverberated through Wing’s frame, “my amusements with you may be nearing an end.”

Wing managed a nod. It would be over soon. Over. And his disgrace, betrayal, failure, loss, regret, would end, settle like some ugly sediment in the bottom of the universe. With luck he’d be unmourned. 

“Any regrets?”  A quirk in the voice, like a smile behind the heavy facemask. 

There was no use lying to Turmoil, and in a sense, who better to be his confessor. “That with me,” Wing said, pausing, struggling for words, struggling for coherence through the pain, “dies the last memory of my city.”

“Bittersweet,” Turmoil nodded, gratified.  As though adding that to his list was an accomplishment. “Now.” 

A sudden burst of noise and light, the thunderous crash of the door to the small room being blown open.  Wing watched it, dully, as if in slow motion, rocket across the room, a crumpled metal shape, clanging off the ground in a wild ricochet. 

“Now,” a voice echoed in the doorway, raw and familiar, a jagged silhouette.  Wing’s head rolled on half-ruined actuators to look.  Deadlock, optics blazing, fixed on Turmoil.

Turmoil laughed, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Deadlock. What a surprise.” His voice was flat and toneless.

“Then you’re duller than I remember. Or you let yourself get…wrapped up.” A gesture with one gun toward Wing’s mauled frame.

“And I suppose this is some wild rescue.”

“Something like that.”

“Unfortunately, you’re too late.” Turmoil purred at the flare of panic in Deadlock’s optics, the way his gaze flew over to Wing. “He wants to die, Deadlock. It would be a cruelty to let him live.”

“Doubtless why you’ve let him live so long.” Deadlock’s voice was pure venom. He strode into the room,  jamming one gun into its holster, the other still aiming center mass of Turmoil’s face.  “Wing,” he said, concern bleeding into his voice in red seeping edges.

“Something like that,” Turmoil mimicked.  “Of course, I _did_ enjoy it,” Turmoil said, unctuously.  He moved around to the platform’s other side, Wing between them, the bore of Deadlock’s gun tracing an arc to follow him. 

Wing tried to make a sound, half delirious with pain.  Deadlock’s gaze surveyed the damage, his scowl carving deeper into his face.  Turmoil could feel his disgust and rage roil over the table at him. The best part of Deadlock was how very open he was with his emotions. Entirely incapable of hiding them. 

“He is coming with me,” Deadlock said.

“Ah. And is that how you show concern, then? Sentencing this poor, ruined thing, to the agony of living when he so desperately, desperately wants to let go?”  He splayed a broad hand over the cracked chassis, possessively. He could see the lash of emotion over Deadlock’s face, the helm lowering, optics glowing, bullishly.

“His to decide,” Deadlock hissed. He turned down, meeting the gold optics, above the shattered facial plates. “Wing.” 

Wing shuddered under the weight of the choice, the magnitude of a yes or no.  He was threads away from dying, and would have been happy with it, content to finally slip through the misery of the end of life, become invisible, unmourned, incapable of hurting anymore. But Deadlock was here, and he could feel the faint flicker of hope and goodness in the other mech, the tiny ember he’d seen in Crystal City.  Was his pain worth more than nurturing that beautiful but tiny light? Because he knew how frangible this was, how quickly that light would be snuffed if he died, as if here, on the brink of death, he could see futures fanning out in front of him—how dark Deadlock would become, how much farther he would fall for the pain of mourning.

Could he be selfish, just once?  Could he ask only after himself?

No, he ‘d thought of himself before, in Crystal City, when he’d snuck out, when he’d defied the Circle again and again. He’d put his own desires above others then.  He couldn’t die not learning that lesson.

His one hand reached out, barely able to lift off the berth, catching Deadlock’s hand in his, optics liquid and vulnerable. He’d made his choice, and he would live. As the consequence.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooops got poked I haven't updated this in FOREVER. orz. 
> 
> H/C/angst.

Wing awoke, slowly, riding on the crest of consciousness. The first realization he had was that he was no longer in pain.  It took a long time for it to seep through: no pain, after days and days of constant agony. It felt like a second, bloody self had been ripped from him, a twin of agony and despair. He felt light, too light, as though he might blow away at any moment.

Doomed to live, more, again, when everything he’d ever loved had died at his thoughtlessness. He should feel pain; he wanted it. He deserved to suffer.

He gave a soft sound, on the verge of a whimper, distressed at the absence of pain.  He had to live. Best get on with it.

A shape, moving into his field of vision, and he struggled to place the face. And couldn’t.

“You’re in pain?” The voice was soft, pitched low, a soothing hand on his chassis. He shook his head, unable to place the voice, either.

“Who?”

One corner of the mouth lifted into a smile.  “Dustoff. You don’t know me. Medic.” 

“Medic.”

“Deadlock grabbed me out of repair bay.” A nervous smile that spoke volumes. “You, uh, you don’t say no to him.” 

“Where…?”  Wing hated that he could barely manage syllables, hated the curiosity that was trying to ground him in the present.

“Ship. We’re headed back for Decepticon Central Hub.”  The medic’s large hands skimmed over Wing’s armor, knowing and gentle.  “Now. Pain?”

He shook his head. None.  It was almost eerie. 

Dustoff nodded, pleased. “Some of your armor has to be fabricated, back at base.  But the base components I was able to replicate. Mostly.”  He tilted his head, light from the medical berth’s readouts glossing over a trefoil shaped crest. “It would be better if you let me access your specs.”  A hesitation, as though he expected to be shut down.

Wing nodded. “Yes. Of course.”  He shifted, feeling the gel of a zero-g medicradle shift around him. He looked at his hand, matte black and strange feeling.  A replacement, his body slowly becoming more Decepticon. He wondered, suddenly, if the rest of him was, too, who or what he was becoming.

Dustoff shifted his feet, and Wing realized he’d been staring at his replacement hand for an oddly long amount of time. He mumbled and apology, reaching to open his access port tucked under his other arm.  “Sorry,” he said. “Just….”

The larger mech gave a dismissive shrug, reaching to jack his medicomp into the access port. “You don’t have to talk about it.” 

The kindness staggered Wing. After so long in brutality, this privacy of his own thoughts felt monumental, even as Dustoff’s medicomp pinged his specification files, to gain access to his design, his modifications, everything that made him unique. “Thank you,” he said. Just for the veil of privacy, no matter how thin.

Whatever Dustoff was about to say got cut off by a rush of light, footsteps striding toward the cradle. Wing knew them, instinctively: Deadlock, who crowded Dustoff aside as though he were not half the medic’s size. Wing heard the whir of a velo—Dustoff heating with nerves.  “How is he?” Deadlock barked.

“I was just getting specs,” Dustoff said, shifting back, arm extended to hold on to the medicomp still attached to Wing’s access. 

“Is he in pain?” The blue optics snapped at Dustoff.

“He’s not—“

“No,” Wing said, raising his new hand to touch Deadlock’s armor. The change that went over the other mech was startling: like a ripple over water, the hard lines softening.  “I’m not in pain, Deadlock.”

Deadlock faltered. “…that’s good.”  His mouth folded. “I got there as soon as I could.” A plaintive note of apology in his voice all the more poignant for their awareness that Dustoff was doing his best to be invisible, still downloading Wing’s specs.

“I know,” Wing said.  He remembered too well, those long beautiful evenings together, just…being. No need to control or force, no desire to do anything that just exist in each other’s company. It seemed forever ago, like a beautiful past irrevocably lost.

A second era of brightness Wing had lost.

Deadlock’s face twitched, into an awkward smile, the kind that struggled for words, and failed, like scrabbling for purchase on a stony grade and slipping.  Wing felt he was disappointing Deadlock, somehow, that he should be saying something, gratitude or comfort or…something.

They both twitched, relieved, as Dustoff reached forward gingerly, to detach the lead from Wing. “I’ll…go process this,” he said, stepping backwards, the tension speaking volumes about his thoughts on Deadlock.  He was afraid, terrified and yet…Wing hadn’t felt safer since as far back as he could remember.

And they were alone, and Deadlock’s hand slid up his other arm to cover Wing’s. “Turmoil,” he began.  And stopped. “…what do you need?”  Not what he wanted—as though Deadlock was afraid to know.  Wing nodded at the feral wisdom.

“Could you just…stay with me. Until I fall in to recharge?” He could hear the faint weakness in his voice, the fear and vulnerability.  Deadlock had kept him alive only to hurt him, wanting him to suffer, and now, it seemed that his suffering was the last thing he wanted. It was some consolation that he was changing Deadlock, helping him see…something good.

Deadlock nodded, grimly, folding the jet’s hand in his own, hooking one ankle around a low medic bench, drawing it over.

Wing looked over, his helm rolling on the gel.  “Turmoil.”

Deadlock looked up, questioning. 

“He…and you.” A languid stir of the hand.

“Yes.”  Deadlock’s mouth twitched. He had been no stranger to Turmoil’s…whims. He knew. And he survived.  It was at once a consolation—that it could be survived—and a horror.

“Deadlock,” Wing murmured, turning the name into a crowd of syllables, the sound joining them together through suffering, what they had endured.

Deadlock’s mouth worked, distressed, before he lowered his helm, his rank crest resting on his folded hands, in a position almost like prayer.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> stitching things together

Wing was still in the trauma cradle, the large medic Dustoff bustling around him, when the ship docked with the Central Hub.  Deadlock paused beside the mobile cradle on the ramp, running one possessive hand down Wing’s arm. He looked up at Dustoff. “Keep him safe.”  The words were heavy with threat.

Dustoff nodded, his large hands curling over the gravity handles, almost grimly. Wing shifted restlessly. It didn’t feel safe here. Not that it ever had.

Deadlock gave one last nod, before heading down the ramp, his feet clanking and solid on the decking.

“You ready?” Dustoff asked, the deep voice rumbling from his chassis.

“Do I have a choice?” Wing asked.

“Do any of us?” Dustoff shrugged, activating the grav motor. Wing felt the trauma cradle lift gently off the surface.  

It was a good question, Wing thought, then he realized that a few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have thought it a question even worth asking. A few weeks ago, in the beautiful cocoon of Crystal City, he would have argued, strenuously, that everyone has choice, that decisions were freedom. Now…he wasn’t sure what he’d answer, but the question itself became precious.

[***]

“I’m going,” Deadlock said, hands curled over his swords, “to kill him for this.” 

“And this is manners, then, you telling me.” Megatron seemed curious, probing at motive. It was so familiar: just like before. Deadlock informing, rather than asking.

“I’m not going to hide it,” Deadlock sneered, an oblique insult to Turmoil, who did most things sub rosa.

“I’m sure you think you have a reason.”

“Wing.”

“Wing.”  A tolerant amusement in his voice.

“One thing when he did that to me. Another when—“ Deadlock cut himself off, abruptly, mouth crushing the next word flat.  Not like he needed to say it. 

“So you care more about Wing’s welfare than your own.”

The scowl deepened.  It was almost a shame: Deadlock could be striking—was striking, in those rare moments after interfacing, when he seemed sated, drained of the anger that fueled him.  “Yes.”

Megatron waited a moment, letting the import sink in.  “And he is your possession.”

A whipcrack of pain across Deadlock’s face. “Yes.” 

“I think,” Megatron said, evenly, turning back to his map, “You are his.”

“Not about me. About Turmoil.”

“And what if I say ‘no’?”  

“Then stop me.”

[***]

Wing was sitting up when Deadlock entered his quarters, rubbing oil into the new paneling of his leg.  Dustoff had done good work: they’d have appreciated him at Crystal City for his skill, and the surprising gentleness of his hands. Not what Wing had expected from a Decepticon medic, and so unlike the medical treatment on Lockdown’s ship.

Dustoff had snorted when Wing had voiced that, his optics focused on welding on the sensor contacts.  “It’s the reason they keep me around,” Dustoff had murmured, something almost like withered sorrow in his voice. 

“Thank you,” Wing had said, feeling the lameness of the words.

“For doing my job.”

“For being kinder than you need to.”

Dustoff watched him for a long moment, before picking up his tools again. “I could keep you here tonight. If you don’t want to go back.” An offer, as though rescuing him from something.

Wing frowned, puzzled. “I will be fine.”  He smiled, reaching to lay a hand on Dustoff’s wrist. “I appreciate the offer.”

Dustoff stopped, the tools hanging in the air over Wing’s exposed lower leg mechanisms. His face was unreadable, a mix of emotions.  “Is that how you do it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Keep Deadlock…?”  He seemed unsure of the last word. “Keep him from damaging you.”

“It’s not…I don’t know.” Because he could see it now, the change in Deadlock, from the casual brutality of his use at the beginning, to the helm, resting against his palm in the ship’s med facility.

And now he was here, looking up at Deadlock, seeing the anger almost ebb from him, as though Wing’s presence siphoned it off.  And he couldn’t help but wonder.

“Deadlock.”

A tug at one corner of the mouth, and Deadlock strode over, dropping to one knee, his hand coming to rest on Wing’s hand, rubbing oil on the limb.  Wing could see the change, now, more vividly than before, even the way Deadlock touched him: less like a possession than a treasure, less for his own pleasure than Wing’s.  “You in pain?” The only question that seemed to matter: in a way it was the only thing Deadlock could do something about.

Wing shook his head. “None.”

A grunt. “Good.” Deadlock pushed up, crossing to the small dispenser. A small thing, a luxury he’d had set up since…that time.  It had appeared sometime in Wing’s absence. Deadlock had made no comment about it, drew no attention to the fact that it had never been there before. He crossed to it as though it had always been there, and returned, holding out a ration, warmed and liquid. 

“Where’s yours?” Wing asked, taking it.  Dustoff’s words echoed in his cortex.  Did he keep Deadlock in line?  He was simply treating him as a mech, with manners and courtesy.  Deadlock shrugged. 

Wing pursed his mouth, taking a sip from the ration and holding it out. A test, perhaps, a way to see if he could exert any influence. Or. Control. 

Deadlock took the ration pouch, taking a sip, before thrusting it back toward Wing.   He jerked his chin at the jet. “You’re healing. Need it more.”

“Deadlock,” Wing said, but Deadlock shot him a look, rising to his feet only to swing himself onto the berth next to Wing, planting a kiss on Wing’s shoulder nacelle. 

It seemed bizarre, now, Dustoff’s concern, Deadlock’s hands on him sweet and kind, the mouth gentle and warm as it traced the line of a pinion. “Deadlock,” Wing put a question in his voice. 

“What?”  Deadlock leaned over, meaningfully tapping the ration, waiting until Wing took another sip. It was almost too much, too solicitous, a dream of what Wing had wanted back in Crystal City…the city that no longer was.

“Turmoil.”  The word hung between them like something curdled. 

“You want to talk about it.”

“….yes.”

Deadlock settled back against the berth, one arm over his head, waiting. 

“Deadlock, why did you come for me?”

Deadlock frowned. “Because.”  The optics flicked to the far wall. “Because I know what he does. And you can’t—you shouldn’t have to.” 

  
“And you did?”

“It was a mission,” Deadlock said, mouth thinned. “I did what I had to.”

“Who rescued you, Deadlock?”  Wing felt, suddenly, small and selfish.  If Deadlock had endured—repeatedly—that horror, no wonder he was…everything. Suddenly the small distance between them felt like too much.

“No one,” Deadlock said, his voice thick and numb.

And that’s what Deadlock had faced before he came to Crystal City.  That’s what he’d come from, a ball of anger and hatred, used to being tortured, diminished, made nothing for sport.  Wing would have thought he’d jump at the freedom.  And yet he’d gone back, willingly. To the war, to this. 

Wing turned, wriggling down on the berth, letting Deadlock fold his arms around his shoulders.  Neither looked at each other—allowing that much privacy, at least. “You didn’t have to come for me,” he said.

A low growl, almost angry. “I did. Because.” And Deadlock’s voice cut off something he was not wanting to say.   “I’m going to kill him for this.”

“For what he did to me.”

A grunt, assenting.

“But not for what he did to you?” It seemed the saddest thing Wing could think of, and strangely, profoundly honoring: Deadlock cared more about what happened to Wing than to himself.

Deadlock didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

“He’ll know you will, Deadlock.” Wing risked a glance over, at the face, set and hard.  “He’ll be ready.”

“It won’t matter.”

“It does. To me.” And the words fell like stones ringing down one of the Protihexian chime tunnels, resonating through both of them, this strange, dark bond that had grown between them.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schmoop?

“Come on.” Deadlock’s voice, rousing him from a warm nest of recharge. Wing blinked blearily, half sitting up.

“What? Where are we going?”

“Flying,” Deadlock said. “Medic’s orders.”

“Deadlock, I don’t…it’s all right.” He remembered the flight chamber, the terrifying sudden slam of gravity, too much like Altihex, crunching and flattening him to the ground, the pain and terror only preludes, little arpeggio , hints of what was to come. No, he couldn’t face that. “Maybe later.”

“Orders,” Deadlock said, mouth twisted, as though he realized the irony of expecting someone else to obey orders.

“Deadlock.” He didn’t know how to put it into words, because he knew it sounded like cowardice, weakness.

Because it was.

“I’m going with you,” Deadlock said, flatly. “Be right outside.”

That was…something. It helped, at least it seemed to lift some of the crushing weight from his chassis.

Deadlock’s optics flicked to one side, as though trying to disown his words. “I want to see you fly.”

Oh. That changed…everything it seemed: Wing could feel his spark almost reset itself, rearrange its shattered pieces. Deadlock wanted to watch him fly.

And he knew a few months ago he would have bowed under it like a command, feeling he had no option but to obey: as a thing, a possession. But somehow things had changed between them, in slow steps, halting and sometimes ugly. And now the idea that Deadlock wanted to watch him set something warm and tender inside him moving. He nodded, even as he felt his optics prickle with tears of fear. For Deadlock, he’d do it. Not for fear of the other’s anger or contempt, but out of a desire to please him, to make him happy, to lighten some corner of his darkness.

That was why he’d stayed alive, wasn’t it?

[***]

The flight chamber was empty, and he could almost sense Deadlock outside, optics on the monitor. He scrolled through the selections: windspeed, roughness, holoterrain. He created a place that looked nothing like Theophany: jagged red sedimentary stone at wild, broken angles under a gold drenched sky. He could feel the heat of the simulated sun on him even before he launched into the air, letting his wingpanels unfurl, his body change and slice into the winds.

Deadlock wanted to watch and Wing found he wanted to be watched. He felt something like the old flutter of freedom and excitement over his wings, knowing that Deadlock was watching. It was as if being witnessed brought him joy the way freedom formerly had. He didn’t know what to do with that thought; he didn’t want to, right now. He just wanted, pitifully, selfishly, to enjoy himself.

He flew for a full cycle, swirling and looping in the air, watching the holographic landscape spool out around him, endless variation. He cycled down the hologenerators, slowing, and dropping gentle to the ground, feeling the pleasant warmth of exhaustion, the good kind of tiredness that came from clean, pure exertion.

And Deadlock was behind him, suddenly, pushing against the ebbing of the grav generators, optics still glowing, warm and possessive. Wing crossed to him, twining his arms around the other’s neck, his flight-heated body pressing eagerly against Deadlock’s. His mouth sought Deadlock’s, importunate and wanting. Deadlock resisted, momentarily, before his mouth opened against Wing’s, his hands grabbing the heated wingpanels.

Wing swung around on one heel, turning Deadlock with him, lowering them both to the ground, threading his heated thighs through Deadlock’s, overcome with an unfamiliar wash of desire. He wanted Deadlock, his body aching with want. “Please,” Wing murmured, begging Deadlock, the air, himself, a sound of pure want, wanting to extend, to share, a moment of raw, honest pleasure, to share the brief little glimmer of flight and its joy with another.

Deadlock said nothing, letting his thighs part around Wing’s, his hand snaking between their bodies, mouth finding Wing’s audial flare.

Wing squirmed, febrile with too much want, too much energy, sinking his spike into Deadlock’s sleek, tight valve. He could feel the ripple, instinctive resistance from a mech who rarely let this happen. It made the moment all the more precious to Wing, all the more vivid and intense.

They surged together, legs entwined, on the floor of the flight holochamber, twining like serpents, air cupping the soft sounds—whimpers and moans and sighs—against them, little sonic caresses intermingled over quiet hisses of the pneumatic actuators as they moved against each other.

Wing pushed, pressing Deadlock flat on his back, palms against Deadlock’s, holding himself just far enough away from Deadlock to watch his face, wracked with desire, optics half-lidded and unseeing, mouth parted as if in an invisible kiss. It stirred something in Wing, that blended with the joy of flight, a sort of fierce, feral pleasure in the ability to elicit that sort of response in another. It was power, in a way, dark and rich and heady, and he found himself seizing it, his body surging against Deadlock’s, driving them both to an overload that snatched at both of them, wracking their bodies in long, deep shudders, Wing’s gaze fixed on the paroxysm of pleasure that played across Deadlock’s face.

And he felt the sudden, sweet sharp pull, evidence of Deadlock opening himself utterly to Wing, as the fluid was pulled into the liquid data chamber.

He hoped, as the ecstasy crested over him, that the memories Deadlock received this time were of power and flight and freedom and joy.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OH GOD I suck at updating. Literally I have the whole thing finished in my docs drive. Ugh. Anyway, here you go and I promise to be better at updating. 
> 
> Megatron is a meanie.

It was something like ecstasy, and Wing was tired of telling himself he didn’t deserve it. He likely didn’t, but he found himself grasping for the small pleasures with a childlike greed, telling himself that it sharpened his suffering in the long moments between. 

Now, though, there was no room for thought or recrimination. Only…Deadlock, the mech he’d never thought he’d enjoy. The Decepticon knelt between his spread thighs, balancing Wing’s weight on his own legs, rising up to thrust his spike, slowly, in small, infuriatingly gentle strokes, into Wing’s valve. Wing could feel Deadlock’s hungry gaze, feeding no longer on his own lust but on the spectacle of Wing’s open arousal. 

No words passed between them, as though words were either superfluous or untrustworthy. Just their bodies, speaking through touch, the soft sighing sounds of moans, the exquisite scent of heated systems. 

Wing’s body shivered, teetering on the brink of overload, mouth working through a series of shapes. His helm tilted back, baring a throat that was quickly covered by a hot, nipping kiss from Deadlock’s own mouth, dentae scraping along the cables, Wing’s own hands clutching at the other’s spaulders, clawing against the metal. 

It had been a slow build of charge between them, the angle and the position making the thrusts short and almost sweet, but the overload, when it came, tore with the force of a summer storm through Wing, his wingpanels shimmering with dancing blue light, his body wracked with pleasure, tearing a keen from his throat. 

Beneath him, inside him, Deadlock gave a shudder of release, heat and vibration and an ineffable sensation of shared desire. Wing was dimly aware of Drift’s face, rapt and wracked, optics closed, mouth parted as though kissing the very air. Deadlock’s hands clutched at Wing’s back, under the wingpanels, little points of contact bracing them together. Wing sagged back against them, enjoying for a moment the feeling of being held, supported, by Deadlock’s strength.  

“How…intriguing.”  

The voice cut through the moment, the last ebbs of desire scorching away. Deadlock stiffened, optics snapping open, just as Wing turned to look over his left shoulder to see…

…Megatron, standing, arms folded over his chassis, his mouth curved with a sly amusement. 

Deadlock seemed on the edge of movement, his hands slowly releasing their grip on Wing.  The heat of his engines shifted from overload to a stirring anger. 

“Megatron.” The voice was almost a hiss. “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough.”  An answer that was no answer. Megatron stepped closer, resting one hip on the berth, close enough to touch them. 

Wing shifted his position, slipping his thigh backward, his spark nearly quivering with emotion: fear, mortification, anger. He wanted to speak, but Deadlock—Deadlock had ordered him not to, in public. 

Deadlock’s hand dropped down to that moving thigh, guiding Wing to sit up, rocking his hips back to unseat his spike.  Wing gasped at the hot slide of transfluid from his valve, the ache of bliss cut short too soon. His optics were fixed on Megatron’s face, narrow and dangerous. “Why.” 

“Can’t I visit one of my commanders?” A shark-like grin. “And perhaps, admire his taste in pastimes?” He reached over, sliding his hand down Wing’s back, as the jet sat back on the berth, hand modestly covering his interface hatch. 

Deadlock bristled, almost ignoring his own exposure, his spike silver-streaked and glossy, jutting the air, cooling slowly.  “Admire.”  He was an inch away from violence, his optics hard on Megatron’s traveling hand. 

“Oh, Deadlock,” Megatron chided. “Your jealousy is showing.”

“Not jealous.”  The truculent scowl fell in place like a mask. 

“Ah,” Megatron said, the hand sliding over Wing’s shoulder, where it gripped at the top of a wing strut.  Wing blanched.  “Let’s play a game, shall we?”  

“Not in the mood,” Deadlock said, kicking his feet out from under him, moving off the berth. He stopped, hearing the soft whimper from Wing’s vocalizer, and the slow wrench of metal. 

“Too bad,” Megatron said, his tone dark and insistent. “It’s about time you faced a truth about yourself, Deadlock.”

“I know all I need to know,” Deadlock countered, his  narrowed optics never leaving the sight of Megatron’s hand, tight on Wing’s strut.  

“Then this will be an easy game for you,” Megatron said. “One question. Answer honestly, and you win.” He gave a bit of a smirk. 

“Fine.” Resignation and resentment mingling in the solitary syllable. 

“Wing,” Megatron said, and hauled up on the strut. Wing rose, half off his knees, his face a mask of pain. “What is he to you, Deadlock?”

“Mine,” Deadlock said, his hands twitching, body taut and ready to launch, like an engine held back by a mere thread. He seemed oblivious—or it seemed beneath his notice—that his spike still jutted, slick and hard, into the air.  

“Your…what?” His mouth curled up in a smile that was a basin of some dark humor.  “Your thing? Your toy?” He cocked a brow ridge, as though asking if he needed to get vulgar. 

Deadlock quivered, mouth moving fractiously, uncertainly.  He couldn’t answer. He didn’t know.  But neither of those seemed right. Not anymore. 

A high keen, as Megatron twisted his hand, and Deadlock could hear a rivet pop.  “Let’s ask Wing.” He hauled up higher, Wing’s voice and metal screaming together. He waited, almost with an amused patience, till the sound subsided. “Wing. Deadlock. What is he to you?”  A harder question, it seemed.  

Wing’s hands floated, helpless, in front of his chassis, his optics gold and unseeing, his body panting with pain.  He was in that place, Deadlock knew, where pain removed everything—no shame, no anger, no sense of self other than agony, a place where truth seemed only the minorest hurt.  

Wing gave a protesting bleat, and Megatron shook him, like a rag, the metal squealing from the jet’s weight. “How do you feel about him, Wing?” 

“I…love him!” Wing cried out, finally, a syllable wrenched from the depths of his spark, all unwilling.  

Deadlock flinched, as if struck. 

Megatron gave a satisfied sound, and dropped the wing strut, Wing collapsing down onto the berth in a shower of sparks and energon. “You see?” he said, enigmatically, before turning his back on the pair, walking out. 

[***]

Dustoff managed to find time to fling a scowl at Deadlock as he entered, his emergency medikit thumping against his thigh. Wing sprawled on his belly, one wing strut a ruin of metal and scorch. He’d deal with Deadlock later, he thought. The matter, right now, was Wing. 

He dropped to one knee by the berth, hand already laying the kit out.  He’d known this would happen. Deadlock was…Deadlock. He’d certainly heard the stories.  And he’d repaired enough damage from Deadlock after the smaller mech’s own interfacing sessions. Deadlock played rough. 

And this jet, whoever he was, didn’t deserve that.  He’d been through enough.  

Dustoff attached the sensorblock first, before Deadlock could even snarl the word, his large hand gentle on the jet’s helm, tipping it forward to reveal the tiny relay point. He exvented as the sensorblock took hold, Wing’s frame loosening some of its tension. Better, at least.  Weakness it might be in the Decepticons, but Dustoff couldn’t endure a mech in pain. 

He gave a brusque, comforting nod at the golden optic, dim and tarnished-looking, that sought his.  “Been flying recently,” he said, reading his scanner. “That’s good.” It meant the strut had been in use, the sensors recently activated, circulation systems primed. 

“Deadlock,” Wing said, faintly. “He makes me.”  

Dustoff didn’t know what to make of that, flicking a glance over his shoulder, to be met with a glower.

“Your job is to fix him,” Deadlock said, pointedly, arms over his chassis.  

“I will.”  He turned back, skillful fingers staunching the leaking.  “This needs to be fabricated though. A whole new strut, in a specialty alloy.”

“Problem?”

“No. Just time.” He could feel Deadlock’s gaze, like a weight on his bowed neck.  Bad enough he damaged Wing; now he called Dustoff in to repair his damage. And expected Dustoff to bear his attitude. 

“It gets done,” Deadlock said. 

“Yes.” Another flicker of irritation.  Not everything worked to your time schedule, Deadlock, he thought. “But I’d rather do it right than rush it.” 

“You can do both,” Deadlock said. 

“No.” Dustoff slapped the spanner on the berth, rising, using every micron of his superior height and mass as he rounded on Deadlock. “I will do this right. I will not rush because you’ve broken your toy and are in a pet.”

A sharp intake of air from Wing, drowned by the dangerous growl from Deadlock.  Dustoff saw the black fists ball, one cocking to strike and he caught himself bracing for it. He’d once been a combat mech and the old reflexes were still there. 

“Please,” Wing managed, his voice thin and scratchy. 

Deadlock’s hand froze, mid swing, his vents hard, angry pants, his optics icy blazes.  “You think I did that?” One hand moved, to point at Wing, supine on the berth. “You think I pulled him away from Turmoil to do that to him?” 

“Yes,” Dustoff said, bracing himself.  “Tell me you’ve never hurt him.” 

Deadlock’s mouth quivered but he held himself still, his EM field boiling with anger. Deadlock moved, faster than Dustoff could track, his two hands slamming into the copter’s larger, sturdier shoulders. Dustoff staggered back a step. He could tell it wasn’t what Deadlock wanted to do—that the slam was Deadlock’s idea of restraint.

Wing’s voice again, soft and pleading. “Deadlock.” He stretched out a hand, fingers shaking.  Deadlock whirled, toward the berth, and caught the outstretched hand, in a clasp that was somehow both fierce and tender.  

“Here,” Deadlock said, his voice rough. “Right here.”  

Wing managed a smile, sliding forward to pull Deadlock down onto the berth, one hand wrapping over his hips, pressing his face into Deadlock’s thigh. “Don’t,” Wing murmured.  

Dustoff could see Deadlock’s whole frame, still tightly wound, almost melting at the other’s touch. And he felt a strange almost pang of sympathy for the smaller Decepticon: What must it be like to live like that, so prey to one’s own emotions?  Deadlock seemed almost helpless before his anger, a fire that had an unceasing fuel supply.  

And then Wing, curling against him, and the anger and tension draining out of him, replaced with concern.  Had Deadlock done this?  Dustoff still didn’t know. But he knew regret, and sorrow, and real sympathy, when he saw them. He saw them so rarely. 

His shoulderpanels still stung from the impact as he edged over. “I’ll…finish cleaning the wound and then go to fabricate the replacement parts,” he said, a conciliatory offer. Deadlock gave a stiff nod, as though not trusting himself to anything more.  

And Wing whimpered, slithering further onto Deadlock’s body, as though Deadlock’s emotional maelstrom hurt worse than his own pain, pulling Deadlock down onto the berth, burying his face in the other’s chassis. And as Dustoff knelt to work again, Deadlock let himself be drawn down, arms gentle around the other’s shoulder, mindful of the damage, his blue optics fixed on Wing’s face as though nothing else in the world existed for him. 


	32. Chapter 32

“No.” Dustoff looked down the mass of his chassis at Deadlock. “You don’t need to be here.”

“My quarters,” Deadlock scowled back up, shoulders tightening.

“Because you insisted!” Dustoff’s hands spread in frustration.

“Insisting again, aren’t I?”

“Deadlock. Please?” Wing cycled a vent of air, afraid to ask, afraid to push his fragile influence too far. “I’ll be fine, and you won’t be able to help either of us.”

Deadlock’s head turned, helm lowering, optics blue glares. “Be there to kill him if he frags up.”

“He won’t.”

“Deadlock.” Dustoff was about to try reason with the smaller mech, something along the lines of ‘I’m a medic’ but, well…it was Deadlock. He was immune to logic.

But whatever Wing had: Deadlock wasn’t immune to. The smaller mech shot a look as hot as plasma at Dustoff, and the former copter realized the gaze blazed with a kind of envy, at Wing’s faith and trust. Deadlock jerked his chin, his mouth in an expression of petulant hurt. “Fine. He knows what I’d do.”

“Wasting time,” Dustoff said, mildly, his amber optics moving pointedly to Wing’s damaged back.

The fists balled again, and Dustoff could hear the servos hissing, gathering force, but at the last moment, Deadlock spun on his footplate, metal screeling against metal, storming off. Dustoff stood, tense, rigid, until the door whispered shut behind him.

[***]

The bar. It didn’t have a name: Decepticons weren’t really known for creativity, and ‘the bar’ worked well enough: short, efficient, descriptive. He didn’t come here often. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been here, actually. But not much ever changed: the tables a little more dinged up, the glass of the beakers a little more clouded and chipped. But the engex was the same: strong if not savory. No one drinking here was a connoisseur of anything except inebriation.

Which was his goal right now: two empty glasses sat in front of him, tossed down his throat with barely a thought, a sort of grim determination, racing toward the fuzzy oblivion of drunkenness.

Dustoff and Wing, alone. He couldn’t bear thinking about it. Not after Wing and Megatron. Wing and Turmoil. It fired something primal and furious in him, a jealousy beyond bearing. And to be talked to like that by Dustoff: it was unendurable.

But still, he had to endure it. He had to leave, to let the medic work on Wing, because the thought of the jet injured, grounded, hurt more than his hurt pride.

It still hurt, though.

He snapped his fingers, demanding a third ration, impatient until the server brought it over to him, taking away the other glasses, leaving two wet rings from the empties on the table, like empty eyes staring up at Deadlock.

Deadlock grunted, hand wrapping around the glass, feeling the cool liquid through the glass, looking up, trying to find anything in his line of sight that would distract him from himself.

Just the usual crowds, clusters of mechs, little, untrusting knots around tables, creating rings of backs, shutting others out. A bustle of noise, talking, laughing.

He wondered, suddenly, what Wing would think. If he’d like to see this, if he’d find it familiar.

And it struck him: Wing had never seen it. He’d kept Wing isolated, a prisoner, in his quarters, never letting him leave.

Well, of course, he thought sourly. Look what happened the times he did leave.

But it wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. Wing had been on the ship for weeks and all he’d seen was Deadlock’s quarters, Megatron’s quarters, a handful of other places.

He was Deadlock’s prize, Deadlock’s prisoner. That was what happened to prisoners.

But even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t true. Wing wasn’t his prisoner. He might have been at one point, but prisoners were things, objects, labeled by their crimes. Wing was…something else, to Deadlock, a treasure he kept locked up so that it was his and his alone, so that it couldn’t escape.

His hand squeezed the glass, hard.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. It was vile and selfish of him, keeping Wing like that, like keeping a beautiful plant but depriving it of light. He couldn’t be enough to sustain Wing: he never could be. Deadlock was just a vicious fighter, a tainted thing that had crawled from the gutters on his hate, and he could never be anything more. Back on Cybertron, Wing would never have looked at him, not even in pity.

He was killing Wing, slowly but surely. Every moment dimmed the jet’s beautiful light, trapped him in fear and hatred and anger, the sticky web of Decepticons.

He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear to have the one thing he realized he truly loved ruined at his hands.

[***]

Deadlock didn’t come back until far after Dustoff had left, and Wing knew it was Deadlock’s way of admitting the other was right, giving him space, giving him time to do his work. The sensor block had faded, by the time the door opened, and Wing pushed up from his belly, cautiously folding the flightpanels back, sensitive to pain but feeling only a dull sort of soreness.

“Food,” Deadlock said, thrusting a box out at Wing, and a covered beaker of engex. “Thought you’d be hungry.”

This was better than the usual rations, Wing realized, better than Deadlock normally allowed himself, a small luxury, a huge kindness. Wing pushed to his feet, moving toward the table. “Join me?” He saw Deadlock struggle with an excuse, and give up, and draw up the room’s other chair.

“Went all right?”

Wing opened the food packets. “Yes. Your friend Dustoff is very good.”

“Not my friend.”

“Whose choice is that, Deadlock?” Wing asked, looking up, gold optics piercing and beautiful.

“Think it’s mutual,” Deadlock said, quietly.

Wing knew when to let it drop, pushing one of the parcels over to Deadlock. They were sharing this luxury, whether Deadlock wanted to or not. He was ready for a fight, resistance, and was almost surprised when Deadlock took one of the squares. The Decepticon seemed at a loss, somehow, like he wanted to say something, do something, but he didn’t have the faintest idea how. “I am sorry he sent you away,” Wing said, finally, trying to open some words between them.

“Don’t blame him,” Deadlock said, and there was something bruised in his voice. He started eating, giving a jerk with his chin to hint that Wing should follow suit.

Deadlock was acting strange, but it wasn’t anything Wing could put his finger on: a sort of sadness under the gruffness, that seemed covered over more and more stubbornly as they ate.

And Deadlock led him to the berth, suddenly, as they finished, pressing the last of the engex into Wing’s hand, turning aside to cue up some music on the datapad: one of the pieces Wing had found in those earlier days of happiness, something soft and swirling, a complex melody that danced around like sunlight.

Deadlock took him, then, gently, slowly, more of a giving than a taking, his mouth and hands and body moving slowly, lingering on Wing’s body as he arched and twisted in his desire, Deadlock’s desire gentle and fierce by turns. He pressed his weight upon the jet, mouth against mouth, spinal struts moving in sinuous waves against Wing; he rolled over, lifting Wing to straddle him, looking up at Wing and his flared flightpanels with something like awe in his optics, hands clinging to the jet’s sleek thighs, watching Wing rock and move over him.

It was beautiful and it felt sacred, holy; silent save for the shivering cries of drawn-out pleasure, the sweet melody of the music, the huff of cooling fans, and Wing let it happen, let himself fall and swim in that sea of bliss, surrendering to it utterly, until the night stretched exhausted hands over them both, and they fell, still joined, into a tangled, almost beatific sleep.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well oops I suck at posting. Anyway, so I don't suck in precisely this way again, the ending! Thank you for reading.

Wing awoke slowly, his systems still fuzzed from the night before, not really wanting to rise to the surface of the warm bliss. He only pushed himself to wakefulness when he realized—felt—Deadlock’s absence, rolling to his side just as the door to Deadlock’s quarters opened and he was there.

Deadlock crossed over to him, his optics strange again, shadowed and too bright both at once, and he pulled the jet into a fierce kiss, hands hard on the flight panels. For all the abruptness, it was a tender kiss, glossa flicking almost shyly in Wing’s mouth, until Wing pulled his arms just as fiercely around Deadlock’s shoulders. Deadlock pulled away, slowly, his optics fixed on Wing’s face, as though trying to commit Wing’s expression—the breathless rapture of one being kissed—to memory, before he stood back, twisting reluctantly from Wing’s embrace. “Have to go,” he said, abruptly.

“Go? Go where?”

“You’ll see.”

Deadlock gave him no choice, stonewalling him till he got up, following him as he went into the maintenance facility, where he lounged on the doorframe, watching Wing as he bathed himself, hands occasionally twitching as though fighting the urge to touch him.

Wing wouldn’t have minded, and he had grown beyond caring about the rightness or wrongness of that. He was here, he was Deadlock’s, and if he could make some tiny ember of happiness to heat his coldness by, he would.

Deadlock led him down a series of corridors he’d never seen, big, broad ones, small, cramped ones that reeked of old machinery, until he coded a doorlock, leading them into a small hangar, where one ship stood, prepped for flight.

“Deadlock?” Wing felt something halfway between hope and horror in his chassis as he tried to make sense of it, moving up the ramp of the small craft, spotting crate after crate of supplies, neatly webbed to the interior walls.

“Go.” Deadlock said. “Yours.”

“You’re not coming?”

Three words, and he saw them land on Deadlock’s face like acid, the blue optics blinking too rapidly. “…can’t,” Deadlock said.

“You can’t?”

“Look.” Deadlock stood on the metal grating of the ramp, helm tilted up. “You…I can’t keep you. In a cage. Like this. But I can’t do anything else.” It was an admission that sounded like every word scorched his throat. He looked aside. “Best I can do. And you. Shouldn’t be in a place like this.”

And Wing had been with him long enough to understand: he was either Deadlock’s prisoner—which he wasn’t, and they both secretly knew that—or he would have to change, either be beaten down by others, a victim every time he took a step outside Deadlock’s quarters, or become like them, hard and violent.

“Please,” he said, stretching out a hand. “Come with me. We can go together. We can at least have each other and not be…” Alone. He couldn’t say the word, the pain of it all crashing back around him, crushing him like a wall of despair. Crystal City, lost, gone, and he was the only survivor. And now, cast out into space, alone? The hand he held out shook with fear.

“Just this,” he tapped the Decepticon brand on his chassis, “would be enough to ruin any contact we’d make. Alone, you have a chance.” His mouth pulled into an angry frown. “Besides, I still have business here.”

“You’re choosing the war,” Wing said, his hand lowering. “Over me.”

“No!” A flare of anger, blue hot, as though lit from his spark. “I just…it has to be this way. It has to.” He stepped closer, hands hovering, but not touching, as though to him Wing had already moved beyond him, already become intangible. “You’re light. I’m darkness.” His optics flickered, studying Wing’s face. “It’s the best I can do to let you go.”

Wing felt a wail build up in his chassis, and last night suddenly fell into focus: a farewell, written on his body, said with everything Deadlock had, those ways he could speak without words. And he was let go, he was not a thing to Deadlock, so he ventured into defiance, pulling the other closer, pressing their bodies together, burying his face in Deadlock’s neck, capturing the smooth planes of his armor, the soft hum of his engine, the smell of him: all the things he’d never have again.

It hurt to let go, more than it had hurt to be alive. Dying would be easier than this.

He let go, not trusting himself to words for a moment, but nodding, because he could see the pain this cost Deadlock, the sacrifice, letting go the only thing that had come to matter to him, not because Wing was making him weak, but because he feared for Wing’s own strength, feared he might use him up, swallow him in his darkness. And he wasn’t right, and Wing knew he wasn’t right, but he lacked the words to convince him.

But he didn’t need words: just the willingness of this sacrifice, of this gift to Wing, was proof Deadlock was better than he’d ever thought he could be. And it would be wrong not to honor that. He stepped back, placing his hand, one finger, on Deadlock’s mouth, feeling the lip plates whose kisses and bites and words had swung him from one end to the other, despair and joy, hope and pain.

“We will find each other again,” Wing said, forcing firmness in his voice, making it more than a promise, but a truth, a prophecy. He didn’t let his optics leave Deadlock’s face until the other nodded, accepting it, owning it, wrapping part of himself around the words like a star’s brightest core. Six words that bound them, six words that would pull them inexorably into the future. Who knew what they would be then…other than free?


End file.
